(Entered in paper journal at 8:15 AM on Q-train from Brooklyn to Manhattan.)
Dream #1
I was on a sidewalk by a tall wall of black-grey, granite rocks. I was clipping vine-like weeds which had grown from the park, a hill of which crested at the top of the fence. I noticed, though, to my right, where the fence was lower, that as I clipped the weeds there grey fleshy, peach-colored, vine-like tendrils. They grew with speed and direction, something almost like will.
I thought, How can I stop these things from growing? I then thought, If these things have a will, are they angry at me for clipping them? I was afraid that the peach-colored weeds would do something like strangle me. But I kept clipping the green weeds around me because the wall really needed the cleaning.
I looked to my right again. The stone wall was gone. There was only a black-iron fence showing a lawn level with the sidewalk. On the lawn was a smallish (maybe fifteen-foot-tall) tree. I realized the peach tendrils hadn't been weeds, but the roots of this tree.
The tree grew a huge, peach-colored limb out of itself, as willed and flexible as the tendrils had been. I thought again that the limb was angry at me and wanted to do something awful to me by touching me. The limb grew into a shape like a phallus.
I stepped backwards, across the street. But then I thought, Wait. You've seen a tree like this before. It was in a dream. This is a dream, too. I was still afraid. But I thought that if I was having another dream with a tree like this, I might as well risk an encounter with the tree to see what it was all about, even if it did something bad to me.
I walked across the street again, toward the tree. As I did, the scene (and my consciousness of the dream) faded out.
I was now walking into something like a parking lot with a group of friends. I wanted to show my friends the tree, to see what they made of it. But the tree was now just a metallic pole, like the perforated poles for street signs.
A woman thought I was crazy for having called this thing a tree. But I knew the tree would reveal itself, mainly once prey had gotten close enough for it to attack.
I was mad that the girl thought I was crazy. I wanted to show her that I wasn't lying. I told her to go smack the pole. So she did. Something invisible smacked the girl on the arm. The girl was now interested, but not really concerned.
I got even angrier. I really wanted the girl to feel how afraid she should be. So I told her to bite the pole. The girl bit into the pole and growled like a dog. Then she stood up. She said, "See? Nothing happened."
But suddenly the girl's eyes went blank. The girl was trying to move, but it was like something was holding her head. Something pressed in on the girl's head. The girl got slapped around a couple of times by some invisible force.
Now the girl was kneeling before the group and directly in front of me. The girl was dressed like an old, Mexican peasant woman, with a dark shawl over her head. The girl was making a weird, hooting, pained noise.
The girl looked up at me. Her eyes had been poked out. But the tree was still attacking her, and now something even worse would happen. I thought, Why did I put her into that kind of trap?
Dream #2
I stood before a conveyor belt cash register in a grocery store. A skinnyish, baldish, white man with a prim attitude stood behind the register. The man had rung up my food order. But a person (an older man?) behind me pointed at a painting on the wall to my right. He said, "I'm intersted in buying that."
The cashier hadn't wanted to help me much in the first place. But now he took the occasion to ignore me completely. I had handed the cashier my money. He'd now dropped it onto the conveyor belt and walked slightly backward from the register, looking over at the painting. I tried to get the cashier's attention, so I could pay and leave. But the cashier wouldn't pay attention to me.
I looked at the painting. It was maybe twelve feet by twelve feet. The scene was a Seurat-style "park," but the painting style was very much like that of Gauguin, with deep and pale blues and deep and pale purples. I looked down at my money on the conveyor belt.
Now an Hispanic (or light-skinned black) woman, another worker, walked up to the register, possibly with another female worker. The woman took my bills off the conveyor belt. She asked me, "This is what you gave him?"
I said, "Yes."
She said, "You gave him way too much." She handed me back all my money. I probably kept $150 (???!!!) and handed back the rest. I tried to make a joke about having thrown down so much money.
There were a few people (friends?) around me. We were all laughing at something, I don't know what. I tried to make a joke along the lines that I had thrown down all that money because I thought we were at a casino. But my vision was cloudy and my brain was blurry, and I couldn't think of what to say or do. On top of that, nobody was paying attention to me. My friends were all laughing at some random thing. The cashier and her friend were talking to each other and not paying attention to me.
I threw my money back on the conveyor belt again, as if I were throwing chips on a roulette table. I felt stupid, first because I had thrown the money so messily and violently, and second because my mind was so cloudy that I couldn't think of what to say next.
I cried, "Put it all on red!"
Thursday, January 31, 2013
(1/1/08) garbage pack
(Entered in paper journal at 2:20 PM on the 1-train in Manhattan.)
Dream #1
I walked down a city street at night. Lights like incandescent lights shone on the street. The area looked a little rundown. Two men, each with a child, stood on a sidewalk. They stood by a garbage truck, which also looked rundown, like paint was chipping off of it. One man was black, with long hair in dreads. The other was white, looking perhaps upper-middle-class.
I walked through the garbage cans. The black man's child (white or Asian?) looked at me as if he wanted to ask me questions. The man pulled him away and yelled at the child not to talk to scummy people like me. I hadn't intended to stop to talk to the boy. I continued walking.
I walked past the second man and child. I was wearing a big backpack or carrying a big, rolling suitcase. The child (white, blonde, with blue eyes and glasses) asked me why I had such a big backpack.
I saw the kid was wearing a red (?) backpack that was almost as tall as he. I said, "Well, why do you wear your backpack?"
The boy said, "To go to school with."
I said, "Well, I carry my backpack for a similar reason."
Dream #1
I walked down a city street at night. Lights like incandescent lights shone on the street. The area looked a little rundown. Two men, each with a child, stood on a sidewalk. They stood by a garbage truck, which also looked rundown, like paint was chipping off of it. One man was black, with long hair in dreads. The other was white, looking perhaps upper-middle-class.
I walked through the garbage cans. The black man's child (white or Asian?) looked at me as if he wanted to ask me questions. The man pulled him away and yelled at the child not to talk to scummy people like me. I hadn't intended to stop to talk to the boy. I continued walking.
I walked past the second man and child. I was wearing a big backpack or carrying a big, rolling suitcase. The child (white, blonde, with blue eyes and glasses) asked me why I had such a big backpack.
I saw the kid was wearing a red (?) backpack that was almost as tall as he. I said, "Well, why do you wear your backpack?"
The boy said, "To go to school with."
I said, "Well, I carry my backpack for a similar reason."
(1/3/08) telekinetic lights
(Entered in paper journal at 6:30 AM on Q-train from Brooklyn to Manhattan.)
Dream #1
I was in the basement apartment of a house. It must have been late afternoon. I was writing, kneeling over a bed or couch that was lit by the grey light of a window above me. The bed/couch was cluttered with all kinds of things.
I sat my pen down. I motioned at the pen, but didn't touch it. The pen flew against the back of the (couch?). I was amazed that I could do something like that. It seemed like telekinesis.
I lifted up my hand. The pen stood, again without my touching it. I dropped my hand. The pen fell. I lifted up my hand and thought for the pen to come to me. It flew into my hand.
A woman like my psychiatrist A, with big, dark glasses, was looking in through the window. I thought she was spying on me and would report me if she knew I was practicing telekinesis. When I caught A's face in the window, A hurried away, toward a fence, keeping her back to me, and trying not to look suspicious.
Hoping to cover my trail, I now tried to act like I hadn't been performing any telekinesis.
Suddenly I noticed how dark this room was. There was a specific light in the room I thought should be turned on. I walked around, but I couldn't find it. Other lights in the room turned on. But they weren't the one I was looking for. They all lit the room in portions or only in shifts or blinkingly. I was looking for a solid light. It must have been completely dark outside by now. A lot of lights had beautiful, Rococo-style ornamentation around them.
I heard a conversation in my head between me and A, who was now something like my landlady. The conversation may have been about the lights. But I felt the conversation was mostly fabricated by me, to make A forget that she'd seen me perform telekinesis.
Dream #1
I was in the basement apartment of a house. It must have been late afternoon. I was writing, kneeling over a bed or couch that was lit by the grey light of a window above me. The bed/couch was cluttered with all kinds of things.
I sat my pen down. I motioned at the pen, but didn't touch it. The pen flew against the back of the (couch?). I was amazed that I could do something like that. It seemed like telekinesis.
I lifted up my hand. The pen stood, again without my touching it. I dropped my hand. The pen fell. I lifted up my hand and thought for the pen to come to me. It flew into my hand.
A woman like my psychiatrist A, with big, dark glasses, was looking in through the window. I thought she was spying on me and would report me if she knew I was practicing telekinesis. When I caught A's face in the window, A hurried away, toward a fence, keeping her back to me, and trying not to look suspicious.
Hoping to cover my trail, I now tried to act like I hadn't been performing any telekinesis.
Suddenly I noticed how dark this room was. There was a specific light in the room I thought should be turned on. I walked around, but I couldn't find it. Other lights in the room turned on. But they weren't the one I was looking for. They all lit the room in portions or only in shifts or blinkingly. I was looking for a solid light. It must have been completely dark outside by now. A lot of lights had beautiful, Rococo-style ornamentation around them.
I heard a conversation in my head between me and A, who was now something like my landlady. The conversation may have been about the lights. But I felt the conversation was mostly fabricated by me, to make A forget that she'd seen me perform telekinesis.
(1/4/08) a burger king bathroom; communications and death
(Entered in paper journal at 6:15 AM on Q-train from Brooklyn to Manhattan.)
Dream #1
I was walking down a hill of a small street at night. I was looking for a place to go to the restroom. There was a Burger King to my right. The whole street was dark, no lights, except a small sliver of light from the Burger King sign. The Burger King was part of some long row of shops in a stout, decked, wooden building that somehow reminds me of the Old West.
I walked into the Burger King through a side or back door. The place was only half-lit. I was in a small cul-de-sac to the right of the main dining area. In the dining area were a couple workers, probably a man and a woman. I hoped they wouldn't notice me. I had no intention of buying anything. I just wanted to use the restroom.
I went into the restroom. It was kind of barren and trashy. I might have started using the urinal. (At this point I may have woken up. The feeling of anxiety about the workers potentially thinking I was a creep because I hadn't bought anything was still with me. But now I thought, It was just a dream. You get that one for free.)
Dream #2
I sat before a computer, probably in a dark room. To my right, about ten feet away, were some friends of mine, possibly both girls.
My computer might have had two screens. On the bottom right corner of the right screen was a little grey "button" logo that had a right-facing triangle on it, like a "play" button. On the rest of the screen was something like a control panel with lots of virtual touchscreen buttons. The panel was grey like steel, but all over it, and the background of the screen, was a strange iridescence. The background was probably iridescent in bright colors. The left screen may have been much like this.
I believe I had been conducting business on my left screen when I heard a voice come (as if from the play button) from the right screen. It was a woman's voice. The woman said, "Hello?"
I looked down at the play button. I knew this play button was part f some new internet fad, where people spoke to each other by recording short messages via this touchscreen button and then sending them. Sometimes you could send to random people. Sometimes you could receive from random people.
I didn't quite know how to work the system. I pressed the button and said, "Hello. My name is Preemie." But before I could finish my message, I got the "Hello?" again.
I pressed the button and asked a short question. But as soon as I sent the message I got another message back. The woman said, "My name is Maya. I'm a teacher at Princeton University. I can't talk much with you now. I have to get to my next class."
I thought, Are all messages pre-recorded? This woman hasn't yet responded directly to any of my messages. I sent a message again, like, "I hope you have a good day at classes."
My friends in the distance giggled at me. They said, "Don't you know you don't talk to people on things like this? Who knows what kind of wacko that person really is?"
I thought, Well, that's true.
(At this point in my journaling, I got off the train in Manhattan. I resumed entering my dreams in my paper journal at 6:40 AM at the Starbucks on 57th Street and 7th Avenue.)
I was pulling away from the building, backwards, as if I were in a car. It was night, on a smallish business street that was fairly well lit. I had to pull all the way around three or four stopped cars, one of which was a police car. I pulled around and then behind them.
I then realized that the two non-police cars had been in a wreck. I slowly pulled up beside one car, on its right side. I had to stop there, as if the cops had the road blocked. I might no longer have been the one driving the car I was in.
Beside the passenger window were a group of middle-aged ladies. The ladies were kind of fat, with feathery, blonde hair. They were talking about the victims of the wreck. I couldn't tell if these women were the victims' mothers or police practicing telling the mothers about their children when the mothers arrived.
I looked out the driver's side window, as if I were looking past someone who sat in the driver's seat while I sat in the back, passenger's side seat. It looked like the black car had been smashed up, crumpled like a can, with its roof torn off.
There were three women in the backseat of the black car, and maybe other people in the front seat. Everybody in the car was dead. But it looked like the women in the backseat were just sleeping. The woman in the passenger's-side backseat was most easily visible. She was palish white, with dark hair.
I thought, This is my first time seeing freshly dead bodies. I felt like I should be ashamed for actually wanting to see the dead bodies. But I also felt like I would put myself in a dangerous situation by looking at the bodies for too long. I thought, Well, regardless, I'll have plenty of time to look at them. We aren't going anywhere for a while. The cops won't let us move.
Dream #1
I was walking down a hill of a small street at night. I was looking for a place to go to the restroom. There was a Burger King to my right. The whole street was dark, no lights, except a small sliver of light from the Burger King sign. The Burger King was part of some long row of shops in a stout, decked, wooden building that somehow reminds me of the Old West.
I walked into the Burger King through a side or back door. The place was only half-lit. I was in a small cul-de-sac to the right of the main dining area. In the dining area were a couple workers, probably a man and a woman. I hoped they wouldn't notice me. I had no intention of buying anything. I just wanted to use the restroom.
I went into the restroom. It was kind of barren and trashy. I might have started using the urinal. (At this point I may have woken up. The feeling of anxiety about the workers potentially thinking I was a creep because I hadn't bought anything was still with me. But now I thought, It was just a dream. You get that one for free.)
Dream #2
I sat before a computer, probably in a dark room. To my right, about ten feet away, were some friends of mine, possibly both girls.
My computer might have had two screens. On the bottom right corner of the right screen was a little grey "button" logo that had a right-facing triangle on it, like a "play" button. On the rest of the screen was something like a control panel with lots of virtual touchscreen buttons. The panel was grey like steel, but all over it, and the background of the screen, was a strange iridescence. The background was probably iridescent in bright colors. The left screen may have been much like this.
I believe I had been conducting business on my left screen when I heard a voice come (as if from the play button) from the right screen. It was a woman's voice. The woman said, "Hello?"
I looked down at the play button. I knew this play button was part f some new internet fad, where people spoke to each other by recording short messages via this touchscreen button and then sending them. Sometimes you could send to random people. Sometimes you could receive from random people.
I didn't quite know how to work the system. I pressed the button and said, "Hello. My name is Preemie." But before I could finish my message, I got the "Hello?" again.
I pressed the button and asked a short question. But as soon as I sent the message I got another message back. The woman said, "My name is Maya. I'm a teacher at Princeton University. I can't talk much with you now. I have to get to my next class."
I thought, Are all messages pre-recorded? This woman hasn't yet responded directly to any of my messages. I sent a message again, like, "I hope you have a good day at classes."
My friends in the distance giggled at me. They said, "Don't you know you don't talk to people on things like this? Who knows what kind of wacko that person really is?"
I thought, Well, that's true.
(At this point in my journaling, I got off the train in Manhattan. I resumed entering my dreams in my paper journal at 6:40 AM at the Starbucks on 57th Street and 7th Avenue.)
I was pulling away from the building, backwards, as if I were in a car. It was night, on a smallish business street that was fairly well lit. I had to pull all the way around three or four stopped cars, one of which was a police car. I pulled around and then behind them.
I then realized that the two non-police cars had been in a wreck. I slowly pulled up beside one car, on its right side. I had to stop there, as if the cops had the road blocked. I might no longer have been the one driving the car I was in.
Beside the passenger window were a group of middle-aged ladies. The ladies were kind of fat, with feathery, blonde hair. They were talking about the victims of the wreck. I couldn't tell if these women were the victims' mothers or police practicing telling the mothers about their children when the mothers arrived.
I looked out the driver's side window, as if I were looking past someone who sat in the driver's seat while I sat in the back, passenger's side seat. It looked like the black car had been smashed up, crumpled like a can, with its roof torn off.
There were three women in the backseat of the black car, and maybe other people in the front seat. Everybody in the car was dead. But it looked like the women in the backseat were just sleeping. The woman in the passenger's-side backseat was most easily visible. She was palish white, with dark hair.
I thought, This is my first time seeing freshly dead bodies. I felt like I should be ashamed for actually wanting to see the dead bodies. But I also felt like I would put myself in a dangerous situation by looking at the bodies for too long. I thought, Well, regardless, I'll have plenty of time to look at them. We aren't going anywhere for a while. The cops won't let us move.
(1/5/08) sonic boom stadium; pregnant little girl
(Entered in paper journal at 7:10 AM at home in Brooklyn.)
Dream #1
It was daytime. I walked through a sports stadium the diameter of which was maybe four times greater than normal. The bleachers may even have rolled up and down like hills. The field was minuscule compared to the bleachers. I walked with a man who was somewhat unseen. He was probably taller than I, white, with tanned skin, long, brown-blonde hair, and a beard.
We had been walking toward the edge of the gigantic stadium. Now we stopped and turned back, toward its center. I looked along the edge, counterclockwise, and almost mentioned that sometimes over this area I had seen B-2 bombers. Bu then I thought not to mention it, hat that was a special occurrence I should keep to myself. Instead I mentioned that we might see jets in this area.
Suddenly two jets flew over us. They flew low before us, over us, and behind us. They each made a "sonic boom," which was a kind of mellow sound. The jets looked like F-86s with stubby, X-15-like wings. The bodies were silver. The wings were a shimmery blue and purple.
A group of jets passed over our heads again, this time from behind us. They made the sonic booms. Then it seemed like a lot of jets flew overhead. As the sonic booms continued, my vision went out. The sonic booms became like a constant, soundless, brittle spasm in my ears.
Dream #2
I was with my brother at a picnic table at the end of a gravel driveway for a big, wood house in the middle of a foresty area. My brother had possibly been coming here to see a doctor or to get some medicine. I had been waiting for him out at the table. I might have had a bunch of random stuff with me, some of it in plastic bags.
My brother had come back to tell me he couldn't find the doctor. I went to the house. There was a side entrance leading down to the basement. I walked down the cement-walled stairwell and into the threshold of the basement.
I stood staring into the room. It was filthy. I didn't even want to step inside. In the opposite corner of the room from me was a TV, which was on. I stared at it, as if hypnotized.
A young, black man walked down the stairs. I got a little out of his way and asked him how he was doing. He nodded his head, as if being polite, but he gave me a smirky kind of look, as if he wondered why I was here.
It was now like I had taken my brother here because he was looking at a place to live. It would be a shared room in this basement. I thought, There's no way he's living here. If he lives here it will just be trouble with this guy.
I had already resolved that my brother shouldn't live here. But the way the guy had looked at me, s if he already suspected me of something, made me call out, "I don't think I'll take the room here. This was just a visit. I think I'll look at other places."
I went back to the picnic table. I told my brother we were ready to go. I pulled out my phone to call my mom and let her know we were coming back. But my phone was somehow broken. The screen on its back was blue, as if some bluish liquid had made up the electric screen but was no completely de-activated. The blue liquid had sloshed down to the bottom half.
I had somehow dialed a random number from my phone book. A woman answered. I tried to explain that I had called her accidentally. I was just sending out some signal to determine whether I could reach anybody.
I was in a room like a waiting room in a doctor's office. I might have been leaving. I was speaking with a nurse.
A black man walked in. He looked familiar. I thought perhaps we had been part of some group hospital thing. But I also felt like he was here just to follow me, as part of a group of people who suspected me of something.
The nurse asked the man, "Do I know you from somewhere?" The man didn't say much. It was the man's turn to be treated now. But I couldn't let the man go without knowing for sure that he wasn't following me.
The man and the nurse were down in some nice basement with tall ceilings, talking and laughing. I asked the man, "Where are you from? You didn't start coming here until I did. Are you following me?"
The man looked at me blankly, as if he thought I was a piece of trash who had no right to ask him a question. He then stood close to me, as if to scare me with the threat of fighting. He started telling me about his line of work. He sounded something like a manager for music groups. I told him so. He was kind of surprised. He seemed less angry at me.
I was getting reading to leave this place. My mom had dropped me off here. She had gotten back a while ago to pick me back up. But my appointment had been delayed, and now I needed to take a shower to wash off something like radioactive material. I felt bad that I had made my mom wait so long. I wished I could hurry.
I was now flying all over the room wherever I was. It was like the last basement, except it faced at a different angle. It was also more like a ski lodge. It was night. My nephews sat on some ledge by the stairway, waiting for me.
I descended and picked up my youngest nephew. He said, "I saw a snowman! I saw a snowman!" I was surprised to hear my nephew speak at all, let alone speak so well: he was only six months old. I asked my nephew about the snowman. In my mind I saw a plastic snowman figure.
The scene shifted to the backseat of a vehicle like a van. My "nephew" was now a little girl like my cousin B had been. She wore a pink dress and a pink sweater. She was telling me how she wished she could have kids. She was straddling me as I lay back, my head against the back of the driver's seat.
The girl said, "The only thing I'm worried about is people finding out I'm pregnant. If I get sick, I'll give myself away." But now she was getting sick. She tried to hold it in, but she unintentionally leaned over my right shoulder and threw up.
My aunt M, who had been driving, got mad and yelled, "My ex-husband sucks! My ex-husband sucks! My husband sucks! My husband sucks!"
My aunt's three daughters were now all in the car. I understood that my aunt was angry at the little girl for having gotten pregnant. But, instead of getting mad and yelling at the girl, was yelling about how bad their dads were, to make the girls feel bad.
Dream #1
It was daytime. I walked through a sports stadium the diameter of which was maybe four times greater than normal. The bleachers may even have rolled up and down like hills. The field was minuscule compared to the bleachers. I walked with a man who was somewhat unseen. He was probably taller than I, white, with tanned skin, long, brown-blonde hair, and a beard.
We had been walking toward the edge of the gigantic stadium. Now we stopped and turned back, toward its center. I looked along the edge, counterclockwise, and almost mentioned that sometimes over this area I had seen B-2 bombers. Bu then I thought not to mention it, hat that was a special occurrence I should keep to myself. Instead I mentioned that we might see jets in this area.
Suddenly two jets flew over us. They flew low before us, over us, and behind us. They each made a "sonic boom," which was a kind of mellow sound. The jets looked like F-86s with stubby, X-15-like wings. The bodies were silver. The wings were a shimmery blue and purple.
A group of jets passed over our heads again, this time from behind us. They made the sonic booms. Then it seemed like a lot of jets flew overhead. As the sonic booms continued, my vision went out. The sonic booms became like a constant, soundless, brittle spasm in my ears.
Dream #2
I was with my brother at a picnic table at the end of a gravel driveway for a big, wood house in the middle of a foresty area. My brother had possibly been coming here to see a doctor or to get some medicine. I had been waiting for him out at the table. I might have had a bunch of random stuff with me, some of it in plastic bags.
My brother had come back to tell me he couldn't find the doctor. I went to the house. There was a side entrance leading down to the basement. I walked down the cement-walled stairwell and into the threshold of the basement.
I stood staring into the room. It was filthy. I didn't even want to step inside. In the opposite corner of the room from me was a TV, which was on. I stared at it, as if hypnotized.
A young, black man walked down the stairs. I got a little out of his way and asked him how he was doing. He nodded his head, as if being polite, but he gave me a smirky kind of look, as if he wondered why I was here.
It was now like I had taken my brother here because he was looking at a place to live. It would be a shared room in this basement. I thought, There's no way he's living here. If he lives here it will just be trouble with this guy.
I had already resolved that my brother shouldn't live here. But the way the guy had looked at me, s if he already suspected me of something, made me call out, "I don't think I'll take the room here. This was just a visit. I think I'll look at other places."
I went back to the picnic table. I told my brother we were ready to go. I pulled out my phone to call my mom and let her know we were coming back. But my phone was somehow broken. The screen on its back was blue, as if some bluish liquid had made up the electric screen but was no completely de-activated. The blue liquid had sloshed down to the bottom half.
I had somehow dialed a random number from my phone book. A woman answered. I tried to explain that I had called her accidentally. I was just sending out some signal to determine whether I could reach anybody.
I was in a room like a waiting room in a doctor's office. I might have been leaving. I was speaking with a nurse.
A black man walked in. He looked familiar. I thought perhaps we had been part of some group hospital thing. But I also felt like he was here just to follow me, as part of a group of people who suspected me of something.
The nurse asked the man, "Do I know you from somewhere?" The man didn't say much. It was the man's turn to be treated now. But I couldn't let the man go without knowing for sure that he wasn't following me.
The man and the nurse were down in some nice basement with tall ceilings, talking and laughing. I asked the man, "Where are you from? You didn't start coming here until I did. Are you following me?"
The man looked at me blankly, as if he thought I was a piece of trash who had no right to ask him a question. He then stood close to me, as if to scare me with the threat of fighting. He started telling me about his line of work. He sounded something like a manager for music groups. I told him so. He was kind of surprised. He seemed less angry at me.
I was getting reading to leave this place. My mom had dropped me off here. She had gotten back a while ago to pick me back up. But my appointment had been delayed, and now I needed to take a shower to wash off something like radioactive material. I felt bad that I had made my mom wait so long. I wished I could hurry.
I was now flying all over the room wherever I was. It was like the last basement, except it faced at a different angle. It was also more like a ski lodge. It was night. My nephews sat on some ledge by the stairway, waiting for me.
I descended and picked up my youngest nephew. He said, "I saw a snowman! I saw a snowman!" I was surprised to hear my nephew speak at all, let alone speak so well: he was only six months old. I asked my nephew about the snowman. In my mind I saw a plastic snowman figure.
The scene shifted to the backseat of a vehicle like a van. My "nephew" was now a little girl like my cousin B had been. She wore a pink dress and a pink sweater. She was telling me how she wished she could have kids. She was straddling me as I lay back, my head against the back of the driver's seat.
The girl said, "The only thing I'm worried about is people finding out I'm pregnant. If I get sick, I'll give myself away." But now she was getting sick. She tried to hold it in, but she unintentionally leaned over my right shoulder and threw up.
My aunt M, who had been driving, got mad and yelled, "My ex-husband sucks! My ex-husband sucks! My husband sucks! My husband sucks!"
My aunt's three daughters were now all in the car. I understood that my aunt was angry at the little girl for having gotten pregnant. But, instead of getting mad and yelling at the girl, was yelling about how bad their dads were, to make the girls feel bad.
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
(1/6/08) swimsuit harassment; moonlighting friend; signs in the mall
(Entered in paper journal at 8:47 AM at Connecticut Muffin in Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn.)
Dream #1
I was talking with a woman wearing a long, white shirt. The woman had bare legs. She said how she ahd bought a new swimsuit (white, I knew), which she was wearing under the shirt. I asked the woman if I could see her in her swimsuit. The woman got mad at me. We were co-workers. The woman somehow made me think she would sue me for harassing her.
I was riding in a car driven by a kind of scraggly-looking man. The man somehow convinced me that asking a girl something like if she'd let me see her swimsuit was the same as asking the girl to have sex with me. That made sense to me. I decided to apologize.
Dream #2
I walked into a small, almost empty bar. One of the volunteer supervisors I worked with over at New York Cares was behind the bar, wearing a black dress. She turned away as soon as she saw me, hoping, I believed, to hide her identity from me.
She asked what I'd like to drink. I told her I'd like a beer. She poured a tall glass of beer and put it on the counter. I thought, Does she make so little money at New York Cares that she needs to supplement her pay by tending bar?
Dream #3
I was in "a mall from my hometown." It was moderately busy. A young, black man with pale skin and wearing a grey windbreaker jacket walked toward me, about twenty feet away from me. He flashed a bunch of rude gestures at me to scare me. I got pissed off and flashed some kind of gestures at him. We had passed each other as I had done this. The man turned and made some inarticulate grumbling as if to say, Oh yeah? Well, we'll see.
Another man walked beside me. He was white, maybe a little oldish and worn-out, with a softish, roundish face and big, watery, blue eyes. He said, "You shouldn't do that kind of thing. Now that guy will just have it against you from now on. He'll find a way to get back at you."
I was walking down a brightly lit, almost empty corridor of the mall. I was trying to find some point of reference that I could remember from the last time I had been in this mall. The current appearance of the mall was so unfamiliar to me.
Dream #1
I was talking with a woman wearing a long, white shirt. The woman had bare legs. She said how she ahd bought a new swimsuit (white, I knew), which she was wearing under the shirt. I asked the woman if I could see her in her swimsuit. The woman got mad at me. We were co-workers. The woman somehow made me think she would sue me for harassing her.
I was riding in a car driven by a kind of scraggly-looking man. The man somehow convinced me that asking a girl something like if she'd let me see her swimsuit was the same as asking the girl to have sex with me. That made sense to me. I decided to apologize.
Dream #2
I walked into a small, almost empty bar. One of the volunteer supervisors I worked with over at New York Cares was behind the bar, wearing a black dress. She turned away as soon as she saw me, hoping, I believed, to hide her identity from me.
She asked what I'd like to drink. I told her I'd like a beer. She poured a tall glass of beer and put it on the counter. I thought, Does she make so little money at New York Cares that she needs to supplement her pay by tending bar?
Dream #3
I was in "a mall from my hometown." It was moderately busy. A young, black man with pale skin and wearing a grey windbreaker jacket walked toward me, about twenty feet away from me. He flashed a bunch of rude gestures at me to scare me. I got pissed off and flashed some kind of gestures at him. We had passed each other as I had done this. The man turned and made some inarticulate grumbling as if to say, Oh yeah? Well, we'll see.
Another man walked beside me. He was white, maybe a little oldish and worn-out, with a softish, roundish face and big, watery, blue eyes. He said, "You shouldn't do that kind of thing. Now that guy will just have it against you from now on. He'll find a way to get back at you."
I was walking down a brightly lit, almost empty corridor of the mall. I was trying to find some point of reference that I could remember from the last time I had been in this mall. The current appearance of the mall was so unfamiliar to me.
(1/10/08) gathering from the aisles; the donnell library closes
(Entered in paper journal at 6:05 AM on Q-train from Brooklyn to Manhattan.)
Dream #1
I stood in front of a church with my mom. The church must have been enormous, but it felt like a small-town, white-sided church. My mom and I were supposed to be heading somewhere. But my mom wanted to stop to do one last thing. She said she wanted to gather soda cans out of the garbage basket at church.
The door of the church was now open. There were people inside sitting at desks, like they were studying in a library. Three older women stood before the door. My mom was telling them loudly what she was going to do. Some people inside looked up from their "studies." I got ashamed and told my mom, "Control your voice!"
My mom now leaned to each woman one by one and whispered to them very exaggeratedly, either as if she were afraid of disappointing me or as if she were making fun of me. Eventually she lost control and started yelling again.
We were now in the sanctuary. There were all different configurations of aisles. The aisles were probably all filled with people. A service might have been taking place.
My mom and I and possibly my brother were going to garbage baskets near the ends of the aisles and collecting soda cans. My mom had a "map" like a board game, which was guiding us around. We had the "map" placed on a beam at the end of an aisle.
My mom also had latex "gloves" for picking up the cans. The "gloves" were just for individual fingers. The "gloves" all seemed to be in weird animal shapes. I searched through the piles and boxes of "gloves" stacked up on the beam. But I couldn't find an animal shape I liked. Eventually I found something. But they were gloves for all five fingers. I thought, If I wear these, my mom and brother will laugh at me.
We were now on a train. The light flowing in was very bright and gold. The seats were arranged along the sides and in the center of the train, so we sat perpendicular to the forward motion of the train. I sat in a seat along a wall. My mom sat in a center seat, across from me and to my right.
My mom looked very depressed. I could tell I had made her sad by being ashamed of her gathering cans from the trash baskets. My mom's hair was disheveled, like it had been in dread locks but was now not taken care of at all. My mom may have been wrapped up in blankets.
I felt awful for making my mom feel bad. She seemed to wake up a little. She looked over at me. I smiled as much and as gently as I could. My mom smiled back. I knew she now understood that I loved her.
My brother sat to my right. Beside him was a woman, maybe a Hispanic woman, with a baby. My brother took the baby by the hair and held it out at arm's length. My mom looked at me as if to say, "Stop him!" I thought, Well, if I'm going to be tough with my mom, I should be tough with my brother, too.
I think I managed to get the baby out of my brother's hands. I told my brother to stop acting this way. Somehow he continued acting violent. So I threw him off the train. The train was at a dead stop. My brother rolled down a short, dusty slope.
I watched my brother walk up a street to my left, where the path of the train would have been. He seemed to be wearing my clothes: my brown slacks and blue, grid-style dress shirt. It was like late afternoon. Now it was like night.
I was in a car outside a house (but as if my position/time had not changed). My mom had gone in. I followed after her, hoping she would take care of what she needed and not get distracted.
I walked to a half-open side-door by a covered driveway. Inside were a few fat, old women. The door opened to the kitchen.
One woman stood over a machine on the counter. She spoke like she thought an infomercial person would, about how healthy eating was hard for her. She said, "That was before I found the Brrr-ito!" The product the woman made reference to was the machine she was standing over. But I could barely see the machine through the half-opened door. From what I could see, the machine looked like a salad shooter filled entirely with fruit glop.
I was disgusted and embarrassed. I thought, How does she think this machine or that food is doing anything except clogging up her life even more?
Another woman now asked, "What do we need to make this?"
A regular-looking woman, about my age, was now before me, walking toward the door. She held a few fruit-like objects in her arms. The objects were colored like cantaloupe skin, and their shape was something like cantaloupe and starfruit mixed. The regular-looking woman said, "You need this: the aorta."
Somehow I got into the house. The goal had been to retrieve a little girl from the house and take her to live with us. I managed to do this.
I saw a black and white photo of the girl. She was maybe nine years old at the most, very thin, with long, stringy, blonde hair. The girl's eyes were different-colored, so that in the photo one eye looked black, and the other, grey. The girl was sitting at a table and putting a spoonful of cereal in her mouth.
I thought, How did I manage to get the girl past the women?
Dream #2
I was in a living room (which might also have been an office) with a bunch of people who were my co-workers. A woman who looked like Nancy Reagan asked me if I had watched the presidential presentations last night, to see how "that senile Nancy Reagan gave a whole speech about 'pops' concerts." I laughed to think of that, but I hoped nobody would think I was an idiot for not having watched the presentations on TV.
Everybody started talking about some corporation, like U.S. Gypsum, that sponsored a lot of the presentation and controlled a lot of it but was masking its presence by denoting a lot of its influence to "public groups" whose acronyms were much like their own. Everybody spoke about what a dirty trick that was. But I had always liked that company. I hoped nobody knew that about me.
Somebody then mentioned that on some email system every email was sent with a signature-footer that made it look like it came directly from the corporation that controlled the email system (like Microsoft for Hotmail). I could see an image of this in my head, at the bottom of a long email.
I was now sitting at a computer by the window. To my left was another computer. Someone, a woman, possibly my mom, sat at the left computer. We were both going onto the computer to test whether the signature-footer rumor were true.
But instead of testing the rumor, I went onto a website where some guy was talking about things you should and shouldn't do in certain social situations. The guy was dark, Asian, big, wearing a t-shirt and baseball cap.
I was in a bathroom. A man and woman stood in the shower. The man was making love to the woman from behind. The "social situations" internet guy called from the other side of the shower curtain, "Stop! That's not something you do in the shower!" I had thought it was nice to see a man and woman in love. But now I was ashamed.
I stood before the sink and medicine cabinet. I was wondering what kind of toiletries it was correct to use, what kind the internet man would approve of.
I walked from outside (on a sunny day) into a library, possibly the "Donnell Library." I had stopped here for only a second, after having finished up some job like a volunteer event. The library was almost empty of books. The library was closing down permanently, and most of the books had been sold. There were small piles of books on occasional shelves. The library itself was very small, only one room, with a dark backroom. There were a few different types of bookshelves.
I knew the library workers were eager to wrap up and get out of here for the day and for good, even though it probably wasn't the end of the day quite yet. I knew exactly what I wanted, though, so I told myself I would be quick.
I was looking for a big magazine, like W magazine's size, that was a fashion, or fashionable, magazine from the 1970s. But now I couldn't find it. I knew all the copies had probably been sold already.
I was heading out the door. I thought I would try to be friendly with the librarian, to show her that I hadn't come in here for no purpose. I didn't want her to think I was just some jerk trying to waste her time. I told the woman, "Sheesh! This place really --"
"-- Cleared out pretty quick?" the librarian interrupted. "I know. Everybody's been saying that."
I walked over to the counter. In the dark backroom there was another librarian moving stuff around. I told the librarian, "It's hard to believe this place is closing. This place means a lot to me. I've come in here pretty much ever since I moved to New York. I wonder what the first book was that I checked out here."
I searched my mind for a second, trying to remember the first book I'd checked out from the Donnell Library. But the librarian stopped me. She said, "Don't go there. You might give me a heart attack." I knew she meant that if I got nostalgic she might start crying. But I thought "heart attack" was a weird expression to use in this instance.
Dream #1
I stood in front of a church with my mom. The church must have been enormous, but it felt like a small-town, white-sided church. My mom and I were supposed to be heading somewhere. But my mom wanted to stop to do one last thing. She said she wanted to gather soda cans out of the garbage basket at church.
The door of the church was now open. There were people inside sitting at desks, like they were studying in a library. Three older women stood before the door. My mom was telling them loudly what she was going to do. Some people inside looked up from their "studies." I got ashamed and told my mom, "Control your voice!"
My mom now leaned to each woman one by one and whispered to them very exaggeratedly, either as if she were afraid of disappointing me or as if she were making fun of me. Eventually she lost control and started yelling again.
We were now in the sanctuary. There were all different configurations of aisles. The aisles were probably all filled with people. A service might have been taking place.
My mom and I and possibly my brother were going to garbage baskets near the ends of the aisles and collecting soda cans. My mom had a "map" like a board game, which was guiding us around. We had the "map" placed on a beam at the end of an aisle.
My mom also had latex "gloves" for picking up the cans. The "gloves" were just for individual fingers. The "gloves" all seemed to be in weird animal shapes. I searched through the piles and boxes of "gloves" stacked up on the beam. But I couldn't find an animal shape I liked. Eventually I found something. But they were gloves for all five fingers. I thought, If I wear these, my mom and brother will laugh at me.
We were now on a train. The light flowing in was very bright and gold. The seats were arranged along the sides and in the center of the train, so we sat perpendicular to the forward motion of the train. I sat in a seat along a wall. My mom sat in a center seat, across from me and to my right.
My mom looked very depressed. I could tell I had made her sad by being ashamed of her gathering cans from the trash baskets. My mom's hair was disheveled, like it had been in dread locks but was now not taken care of at all. My mom may have been wrapped up in blankets.
I felt awful for making my mom feel bad. She seemed to wake up a little. She looked over at me. I smiled as much and as gently as I could. My mom smiled back. I knew she now understood that I loved her.
My brother sat to my right. Beside him was a woman, maybe a Hispanic woman, with a baby. My brother took the baby by the hair and held it out at arm's length. My mom looked at me as if to say, "Stop him!" I thought, Well, if I'm going to be tough with my mom, I should be tough with my brother, too.
I think I managed to get the baby out of my brother's hands. I told my brother to stop acting this way. Somehow he continued acting violent. So I threw him off the train. The train was at a dead stop. My brother rolled down a short, dusty slope.
I watched my brother walk up a street to my left, where the path of the train would have been. He seemed to be wearing my clothes: my brown slacks and blue, grid-style dress shirt. It was like late afternoon. Now it was like night.
I was in a car outside a house (but as if my position/time had not changed). My mom had gone in. I followed after her, hoping she would take care of what she needed and not get distracted.
I walked to a half-open side-door by a covered driveway. Inside were a few fat, old women. The door opened to the kitchen.
One woman stood over a machine on the counter. She spoke like she thought an infomercial person would, about how healthy eating was hard for her. She said, "That was before I found the Brrr-ito!" The product the woman made reference to was the machine she was standing over. But I could barely see the machine through the half-opened door. From what I could see, the machine looked like a salad shooter filled entirely with fruit glop.
I was disgusted and embarrassed. I thought, How does she think this machine or that food is doing anything except clogging up her life even more?
Another woman now asked, "What do we need to make this?"
A regular-looking woman, about my age, was now before me, walking toward the door. She held a few fruit-like objects in her arms. The objects were colored like cantaloupe skin, and their shape was something like cantaloupe and starfruit mixed. The regular-looking woman said, "You need this: the aorta."
Somehow I got into the house. The goal had been to retrieve a little girl from the house and take her to live with us. I managed to do this.
I saw a black and white photo of the girl. She was maybe nine years old at the most, very thin, with long, stringy, blonde hair. The girl's eyes were different-colored, so that in the photo one eye looked black, and the other, grey. The girl was sitting at a table and putting a spoonful of cereal in her mouth.
I thought, How did I manage to get the girl past the women?
Dream #2
I was in a living room (which might also have been an office) with a bunch of people who were my co-workers. A woman who looked like Nancy Reagan asked me if I had watched the presidential presentations last night, to see how "that senile Nancy Reagan gave a whole speech about 'pops' concerts." I laughed to think of that, but I hoped nobody would think I was an idiot for not having watched the presentations on TV.
Everybody started talking about some corporation, like U.S. Gypsum, that sponsored a lot of the presentation and controlled a lot of it but was masking its presence by denoting a lot of its influence to "public groups" whose acronyms were much like their own. Everybody spoke about what a dirty trick that was. But I had always liked that company. I hoped nobody knew that about me.
Somebody then mentioned that on some email system every email was sent with a signature-footer that made it look like it came directly from the corporation that controlled the email system (like Microsoft for Hotmail). I could see an image of this in my head, at the bottom of a long email.
I was now sitting at a computer by the window. To my left was another computer. Someone, a woman, possibly my mom, sat at the left computer. We were both going onto the computer to test whether the signature-footer rumor were true.
But instead of testing the rumor, I went onto a website where some guy was talking about things you should and shouldn't do in certain social situations. The guy was dark, Asian, big, wearing a t-shirt and baseball cap.
I was in a bathroom. A man and woman stood in the shower. The man was making love to the woman from behind. The "social situations" internet guy called from the other side of the shower curtain, "Stop! That's not something you do in the shower!" I had thought it was nice to see a man and woman in love. But now I was ashamed.
I stood before the sink and medicine cabinet. I was wondering what kind of toiletries it was correct to use, what kind the internet man would approve of.
I walked from outside (on a sunny day) into a library, possibly the "Donnell Library." I had stopped here for only a second, after having finished up some job like a volunteer event. The library was almost empty of books. The library was closing down permanently, and most of the books had been sold. There were small piles of books on occasional shelves. The library itself was very small, only one room, with a dark backroom. There were a few different types of bookshelves.
I knew the library workers were eager to wrap up and get out of here for the day and for good, even though it probably wasn't the end of the day quite yet. I knew exactly what I wanted, though, so I told myself I would be quick.
I was looking for a big magazine, like W magazine's size, that was a fashion, or fashionable, magazine from the 1970s. But now I couldn't find it. I knew all the copies had probably been sold already.
I was heading out the door. I thought I would try to be friendly with the librarian, to show her that I hadn't come in here for no purpose. I didn't want her to think I was just some jerk trying to waste her time. I told the woman, "Sheesh! This place really --"
"-- Cleared out pretty quick?" the librarian interrupted. "I know. Everybody's been saying that."
I walked over to the counter. In the dark backroom there was another librarian moving stuff around. I told the librarian, "It's hard to believe this place is closing. This place means a lot to me. I've come in here pretty much ever since I moved to New York. I wonder what the first book was that I checked out here."
I searched my mind for a second, trying to remember the first book I'd checked out from the Donnell Library. But the librarian stopped me. She said, "Don't go there. You might give me a heart attack." I knew she meant that if I got nostalgic she might start crying. But I thought "heart attack" was a weird expression to use in this instance.
(1/12/08) lesbian doll sex; seduced by old friends; steamhippie
(Entered in paper journal at 8:45 AM at Flying Saucer cafe in Brooklyn.)
Dream #1
I was in a helicopter or watching a man in a helicopter. He was talking about how he was flying a plane. The helicopter was very small, maybe the size of a VW Beetle. When the man got to a certain height he said he would now make his descent.
I now saw from the man's point of view. I had wondered how something was filming (or taping) him from the air. Now I "saw" (where?) a jet of some sort, which I assumed was the vehicle on which the camera was positioned.
I now saw as if I were piloting the helicopter. I was descending much more quickly than I thought a helicopter should descend. I descended over a green field which seemed also to have some construction activity on it. I knew I was going to crash. The helicopter crashed.
I stood before a bus bench on a gritty city sidewalk. The helicopter was crashed, lodged between the bench and a small tree. The helicopter was like an oversize toy, maybe a couple feet wide and a few feet long. Its blades were stubby. They were still spinning around, stutteringly. The helicopter, which had been white, was now charcoaled over with smoke and burns.
My family stood behind me, talking. It was my grandfather, my mother, my great grandmother, and a couple other people. I knelt before a reddish-pink, velvety armchair that stood out on the sidewalk.
There were two dolls. They were crudely made, like third-rate Barbie dolls with almost Raggedy-Ann type heads.They had no clothes on. The doll on the left had no limbs.
I wanted to imagine the dolls as lesbians. I wanted to see them having a lesbian relationship. Bu I didn't want to move them with my own hands -- it seemed like that would make them "not really lesbians."
But then I noticed that the doll with limbs was geared. It could make simple movements if switched on or wound up. I may possibly have wound the doll up by spinning a white, toothed wheel which stuck out of its back, saw-wheel-style. It now rolled its head right and forward, as well as possibly shifting its whole body onto its right side and then back onto its back.
I sat the limbed doll right next to the limbless doll and propped the limbless doll on its left side. In this way, it looked like the limbed doll was purposely kissing the limbless doll and then moving its body up against the limbless doll's body. I was turned on by this.
My family was all heading into a building just off from the sidewalk. They got my attention so I could leave, too. My nephews were there, too. I realized these toys might have belonged to one of my nephews. I felt bad for having played such an obscene game with the toys.
As my grandfather walked past me he saw the toys in their movement. He suspected I had made the toys make these movements, but he wasn't sure. He looked at me with a slight disgust. I felt even worse than I had before. I tried to think how I could cover my act.
I walked toward the doorway. It was like a doorless entry, very small, like for a bedroom doorway. It was set in a kind of rundown building. The inside was, by my view from the outside, very dark. I could hardly see my family members once they entered.
Dream #2
I was in a large, dim bedroom with my old friend R and his fiancee L. We might have finished watching a movie on TV. I lay on one bed and R and L lay on another.
We were now getting ready for bed. I felt very tired and grainy-eyed. R got out of bed to turn something (the TV?) off at the other end of the room.
L sat up, kneeling in a way so her knees faced me. She wore a red, shimmery camisole or dress that looked too dressy for being pajamas. She had it pulled up enough on her legs so I could see the crotch of her panties, which were lavender and satiny. She looked at me to let me know she had let me see her panties on purpose.
When that didn't turn me on enough to make me go for her, L lay stomach-down on the bed, facing away from me and toward R. She pulled her "dress" up so that her whole bottom was exposed to me.
I knew L was trying to seduce me, and I was turned on. But I didn't really want to be with L. I also knew that if I was with L, I'd have to be with R, too. I didn't want that.
It was now like we all lay on the same bed. This is the way it had to be when I spent the night. The lights were probably all off. I lay on the left side of the bed, my head to the head of the bed. R and L lay with their heads to the foot of the bed, to my right. R lay next to me, and L to R.
I could tell that R was trying to seduce me. R thought that if I lay in the same bed as he, he still had a chance at seducing me. But I did my best to stay laying opposite R and L and to avoid touching them as much as possible.
Now I lay with my body entirely against the headboard. Something seemed very strange about the bed. It was like R and L were coiled around each other in an elliptical hollow on the bottom half of the bed. (The image in my head now reminds me texturally of the "Thou affrightest me with dreams" drawing in Blake's Job series.)
Dream #3
I sat near a booth-like shop on a small chunk of sidewalk (like Astor Place) in a downtown-like area. It was a sunny, but possibly cold, day. I sat on a bunch of blankets. I may possibly also have been covered in blankets. I was very bleary-eyed.
The shop-booth, to my right, was hung with random (motley) fabrics, which gave it a rundown, but very warm, look. There might have been steam coming from outside the shop, which made sitting outside it very pleasant in the cold weather.
I was, or was suspected of being, either a crackhead bum or an undercover cop posing as a crackhead bum. I may alternately have been myself and a young, black man. To my left, in the sunny street, was a big van, which might have been a police van. I tried not to appear to be associated with the van. I looked back behind my head. There was a tall building of green, reflective glass.
At first there was some shady activity going on between two black people in front of the motley shop. I tried not to pay attention to it. Now a black man, kind of strange-looking, like a hippie wearing a biker jacket, was asking something to the people in the shop, who were Chinese. The man produced a camera from his pocket. I understood the man just wanted someone to take a photo of him in front of this shop.
The man turned first to hand his camera to an Asian man or woman, who sat, like me, in front of the shop, covered in blankets. The Asian person was fattish, slightly worn out, with thickly scraggly hair. He/she wore a black biker jacket. But he/she could hardly hold the camera, let alone snap a photo: his/her fingernails were long and curled so that his/her hands were pretty much useless.
The man handed the camera to someone else, maybe to me. The person took a digital photo of the man bending over some kind of product, behind strips of curtain-fabric hung with globes. Steam might have been coming up around his face. The man wore a bandanna which I thought was mystical. He posed as if he were smelling and enjoying the steam.
The picture had been taken. I saw the image on the camera-back's screen. Seeing the photos, and how the man obviously took this experience to be so mystical and important, I really liked the man. I didn't want to get too close to the man, still, because I was pretty sure if I showed too much of my personality. I maintained a servile attitude toward the man.
I now saw one of my nephews, possibly my oldest nephew, but maybe from when he was five years old. He sat on the blanket by me. I thought, I need to act stronger in front of my nephew. I need to make him feel secure. So I did my best to act as cheerful and confident as possible.
Dream #1
I was in a helicopter or watching a man in a helicopter. He was talking about how he was flying a plane. The helicopter was very small, maybe the size of a VW Beetle. When the man got to a certain height he said he would now make his descent.
I now saw from the man's point of view. I had wondered how something was filming (or taping) him from the air. Now I "saw" (where?) a jet of some sort, which I assumed was the vehicle on which the camera was positioned.
I now saw as if I were piloting the helicopter. I was descending much more quickly than I thought a helicopter should descend. I descended over a green field which seemed also to have some construction activity on it. I knew I was going to crash. The helicopter crashed.
I stood before a bus bench on a gritty city sidewalk. The helicopter was crashed, lodged between the bench and a small tree. The helicopter was like an oversize toy, maybe a couple feet wide and a few feet long. Its blades were stubby. They were still spinning around, stutteringly. The helicopter, which had been white, was now charcoaled over with smoke and burns.
My family stood behind me, talking. It was my grandfather, my mother, my great grandmother, and a couple other people. I knelt before a reddish-pink, velvety armchair that stood out on the sidewalk.
There were two dolls. They were crudely made, like third-rate Barbie dolls with almost Raggedy-Ann type heads.They had no clothes on. The doll on the left had no limbs.
I wanted to imagine the dolls as lesbians. I wanted to see them having a lesbian relationship. Bu I didn't want to move them with my own hands -- it seemed like that would make them "not really lesbians."
But then I noticed that the doll with limbs was geared. It could make simple movements if switched on or wound up. I may possibly have wound the doll up by spinning a white, toothed wheel which stuck out of its back, saw-wheel-style. It now rolled its head right and forward, as well as possibly shifting its whole body onto its right side and then back onto its back.
I sat the limbed doll right next to the limbless doll and propped the limbless doll on its left side. In this way, it looked like the limbed doll was purposely kissing the limbless doll and then moving its body up against the limbless doll's body. I was turned on by this.
My family was all heading into a building just off from the sidewalk. They got my attention so I could leave, too. My nephews were there, too. I realized these toys might have belonged to one of my nephews. I felt bad for having played such an obscene game with the toys.
As my grandfather walked past me he saw the toys in their movement. He suspected I had made the toys make these movements, but he wasn't sure. He looked at me with a slight disgust. I felt even worse than I had before. I tried to think how I could cover my act.
I walked toward the doorway. It was like a doorless entry, very small, like for a bedroom doorway. It was set in a kind of rundown building. The inside was, by my view from the outside, very dark. I could hardly see my family members once they entered.
Dream #2
I was in a large, dim bedroom with my old friend R and his fiancee L. We might have finished watching a movie on TV. I lay on one bed and R and L lay on another.
We were now getting ready for bed. I felt very tired and grainy-eyed. R got out of bed to turn something (the TV?) off at the other end of the room.
L sat up, kneeling in a way so her knees faced me. She wore a red, shimmery camisole or dress that looked too dressy for being pajamas. She had it pulled up enough on her legs so I could see the crotch of her panties, which were lavender and satiny. She looked at me to let me know she had let me see her panties on purpose.
When that didn't turn me on enough to make me go for her, L lay stomach-down on the bed, facing away from me and toward R. She pulled her "dress" up so that her whole bottom was exposed to me.
I knew L was trying to seduce me, and I was turned on. But I didn't really want to be with L. I also knew that if I was with L, I'd have to be with R, too. I didn't want that.
It was now like we all lay on the same bed. This is the way it had to be when I spent the night. The lights were probably all off. I lay on the left side of the bed, my head to the head of the bed. R and L lay with their heads to the foot of the bed, to my right. R lay next to me, and L to R.
I could tell that R was trying to seduce me. R thought that if I lay in the same bed as he, he still had a chance at seducing me. But I did my best to stay laying opposite R and L and to avoid touching them as much as possible.
Now I lay with my body entirely against the headboard. Something seemed very strange about the bed. It was like R and L were coiled around each other in an elliptical hollow on the bottom half of the bed. (The image in my head now reminds me texturally of the "Thou affrightest me with dreams" drawing in Blake's Job series.)
Dream #3
I sat near a booth-like shop on a small chunk of sidewalk (like Astor Place) in a downtown-like area. It was a sunny, but possibly cold, day. I sat on a bunch of blankets. I may possibly also have been covered in blankets. I was very bleary-eyed.
The shop-booth, to my right, was hung with random (motley) fabrics, which gave it a rundown, but very warm, look. There might have been steam coming from outside the shop, which made sitting outside it very pleasant in the cold weather.
I was, or was suspected of being, either a crackhead bum or an undercover cop posing as a crackhead bum. I may alternately have been myself and a young, black man. To my left, in the sunny street, was a big van, which might have been a police van. I tried not to appear to be associated with the van. I looked back behind my head. There was a tall building of green, reflective glass.
At first there was some shady activity going on between two black people in front of the motley shop. I tried not to pay attention to it. Now a black man, kind of strange-looking, like a hippie wearing a biker jacket, was asking something to the people in the shop, who were Chinese. The man produced a camera from his pocket. I understood the man just wanted someone to take a photo of him in front of this shop.
The man turned first to hand his camera to an Asian man or woman, who sat, like me, in front of the shop, covered in blankets. The Asian person was fattish, slightly worn out, with thickly scraggly hair. He/she wore a black biker jacket. But he/she could hardly hold the camera, let alone snap a photo: his/her fingernails were long and curled so that his/her hands were pretty much useless.
The man handed the camera to someone else, maybe to me. The person took a digital photo of the man bending over some kind of product, behind strips of curtain-fabric hung with globes. Steam might have been coming up around his face. The man wore a bandanna which I thought was mystical. He posed as if he were smelling and enjoying the steam.
The picture had been taken. I saw the image on the camera-back's screen. Seeing the photos, and how the man obviously took this experience to be so mystical and important, I really liked the man. I didn't want to get too close to the man, still, because I was pretty sure if I showed too much of my personality. I maintained a servile attitude toward the man.
I now saw one of my nephews, possibly my oldest nephew, but maybe from when he was five years old. He sat on the blanket by me. I thought, I need to act stronger in front of my nephew. I need to make him feel secure. So I did my best to act as cheerful and confident as possible.
(1/13/08) the persistent doberman
(Entered in paper journal at 8:25 AM at Heights Coffee in Brooklyn.)
Dream #1
I lay on my mattress in the front yard of the house my family lived in when I was five years old. I had a skewed or obscured view of the house. The house, I realized, was very small. I felt bad that we had lived in a house that small when I was a child. I wondered how it could have felt so big to me when I was a child. The house looked like just a small box now, hardly bigger than an equipment shed. I tried to place the different rooms in my mind, but I couldn't figure how there could even be rooms in a place so small.
At some point I was standing on the lawn. I looked across the street to another house. It looked only slightly larger than my old house. I thought that the places must seem larger once you're inside them.
I remembered now that I have always remembered a living space like a guest house behind our main house. I tried to look into the backyard to see if I could compare the size of the guest house with this house. But I couldn't even get a good enough look at the house to see whether it was a house at all.
I realized I had been standing here for a while. Somebody obviously lived here. I didn't want them to see me hanging around in front of their house. I figured I'd better leave.
I walked into the street. It was night. My car (the car I had during my last year of High School?) was across the street. The driver's side door was open. There was a weird, gobbling sound.
I ran to the car, to see what was going on. A black boy, about seven years old, with a big doberman on a leash, was climbing into my car. The weird, gobbling sound had been the dog "barking." I grabbed the boy by the back of his head, as if I were clawing or clamping into his head. I threw him out of the car and sat down.
I couldn't figure out where my keys were. I found them and was about to turn on the car when I looked out the passenger door and saw the boy again. The boy was grinning. I wondered why. I now saw that he had opened the door and let the doberman sit in the passenger seat. I pushed the doberman out. I locked all my doors manually. Looking back to the back seat, I saw how full it was of stuff. But it was so dark I couldn't make anything out.
I had started the car and was pulling away. But I saw the boy in my rearview mirror. He was grinning again. I pulled away, thinking I had gotten away before the boy could do anything to me. But as I got to the intersection and turned right, hear the dog barking its gobbling bark again. Somehow the boy had gotten the doberman in through the trunk of my car. I tried to believe it wasn't so.
I heard my mom and her ex-boyfriend J talking about driving directions, the quickest way to get somewhere, possibly to or from Boulder, Colorado. My mom and J were arguing about one of them having taken the wrong directions. I was, in the meantime, driving through what seemed to be a back road in between the city and the foothills.
Dream #1
I lay on my mattress in the front yard of the house my family lived in when I was five years old. I had a skewed or obscured view of the house. The house, I realized, was very small. I felt bad that we had lived in a house that small when I was a child. I wondered how it could have felt so big to me when I was a child. The house looked like just a small box now, hardly bigger than an equipment shed. I tried to place the different rooms in my mind, but I couldn't figure how there could even be rooms in a place so small.
At some point I was standing on the lawn. I looked across the street to another house. It looked only slightly larger than my old house. I thought that the places must seem larger once you're inside them.
I remembered now that I have always remembered a living space like a guest house behind our main house. I tried to look into the backyard to see if I could compare the size of the guest house with this house. But I couldn't even get a good enough look at the house to see whether it was a house at all.
I realized I had been standing here for a while. Somebody obviously lived here. I didn't want them to see me hanging around in front of their house. I figured I'd better leave.
I walked into the street. It was night. My car (the car I had during my last year of High School?) was across the street. The driver's side door was open. There was a weird, gobbling sound.
I ran to the car, to see what was going on. A black boy, about seven years old, with a big doberman on a leash, was climbing into my car. The weird, gobbling sound had been the dog "barking." I grabbed the boy by the back of his head, as if I were clawing or clamping into his head. I threw him out of the car and sat down.
I couldn't figure out where my keys were. I found them and was about to turn on the car when I looked out the passenger door and saw the boy again. The boy was grinning. I wondered why. I now saw that he had opened the door and let the doberman sit in the passenger seat. I pushed the doberman out. I locked all my doors manually. Looking back to the back seat, I saw how full it was of stuff. But it was so dark I couldn't make anything out.
I had started the car and was pulling away. But I saw the boy in my rearview mirror. He was grinning again. I pulled away, thinking I had gotten away before the boy could do anything to me. But as I got to the intersection and turned right, hear the dog barking its gobbling bark again. Somehow the boy had gotten the doberman in through the trunk of my car. I tried to believe it wasn't so.
I heard my mom and her ex-boyfriend J talking about driving directions, the quickest way to get somewhere, possibly to or from Boulder, Colorado. My mom and J were arguing about one of them having taken the wrong directions. I was, in the meantime, driving through what seemed to be a back road in between the city and the foothills.
Sunday, January 27, 2013
(1/14/08) injured superhero; submarine library; frozen burrito; lingerie shortcut; domestication; dirty panties; dirty blanket
(Entered in paper journal at 6:07 AM on Q-train from Brooklyn to Manhattan.)
Dream #1
I was in a locker room. The scene might have been cartoony. A few people were in with me. There was some kind of narrator talking about a superhero who had been injured. The narrator said something like the hero had been hurt by a trick played on him while he was under the Green Lantern's tutelage.
The narrator then said something having to do with flying jets, like how if you go above nine thousand (???), you either need to prepare to land, prepare to hit fourteen thousand, or know that you're going to crash.
Dream #2
I stood outside, at the top of a hill at night. I may have been on a cobblestone walkway beside or near a building. Below me were openly spaced trees maybe a one-hundred-foot slope, then flat land which became a river to my left (?).
There was a weird, bluish light slightly glowing on the tops of the smaller vegetation. The light seemed to be coming from the left. I walked toward the left to see what was making the light.
Where the river began there was a small submarine, its top part barely sticking out of the water. A blue light glowed at its top. The beam of blue light was very strong directly in front of the submarine. In front of the submarine was a man only visible in silhouette.
There was some weird pipe coming out of the submarine. It seemed to hear people, possibly even their thoughts. Then it would call out mean things to those people, which was a sign you were in trouble. I hoped the pipe wouldn't say anything mean to me.
The blue light was now gone. I saw the submarine in dark shadow. The man seemed to be smoking a cigarette.
I was in a city area, walking down a slight hill to a library. A tallish, young, white man was barreling toward me from the other direction. I rushed toward the library: I felt like the man had wanted to beat me to the door. But after I reached the door, the man kept walking.
I walked down some steps and into the basement of the library. I was looking for a specific book, but I got sidetracked by a shelf full of books by "my favorite author." I was surprised. The library had so many of the author's obscure works, including one book in particular that I din't think anybody had.
The library also had a couple collections of the author's plays. I reflected that I hadn't ever really been a fan of the author's plays. He'd try to be funny in the plays. But the humor would just be kind of flat.
I reminded myself that I needed to focus on the specific book I'd come here for. But now, as I was putting all "my favorite author's" books away, I found a pile of magazines, like People magazine. They were all "special issues" with the weird theme of the top-25 (?) people you don't want to make fun of just because they're dead. A few of the celebrities were familiar to me.
One of the magazines began with Gilda Radner. The second interview about her was with Gene Wilder. For some reason the picture of the interviewee, though, was of a pretty, elegant, blonde woman wearing a black hat and net-like veil.
I thought, I already know what Gene Wilder thought of Gilda Radner. I flipped to the first article about Radner. The theme of this article was that you shouldn't make fun of Gilda Radner, because after she got pregnant she lost a lot of weight.
There were pictures "Radner's" back in successive shots after she'd had her baby.The shots were supposed to show how much weight she'd lost. But the only difference, to my eye, from photo to photo, was that the topless "Radner" wore different skirts.
Dream #3
I was in an SUV with my family. We drove through an area like the foothills on a bright morning. I sat in the front passenger seat. My mom drove. My sister sat somewhere in the back.
I had possibly been cut from my job. Maybe my whole department had been cut. But I still had a company laptop with me. Clients were still requesting market data from me. My mom and I were laughing about how people were still interested in Nielsen market data even when they didn't have jobs anymore.
We stopped at a gas station. My mom told us to pick up something for ourselves to eat. I didn't want anything sugary. I wanted something with protein in it.
The store was maybe three times the size of a normal gas station convenience store. I went to a freezer section. There were frozen burritos. I thought, I've always liked these, and they're cheap. I looked at the price. Seventy-one cents.
I was looking for a spicy beef burrito. But I couldn't find the right box. I began shoveling through all the boxes. I started throwing all sorts of frozen-food pouches on the floor. But I still couldn't find the right burrito.
But now I looked at what I'd thrown on the floor. I found a coupe bagel sandwiches. I thought I might like one of the sausage sandwiches. I thought, Well, that's really what I was looking for all along.
Dream #4
I was in a store in a basement with my mother and sister. A lot of sunlight came in through the window. The store sold lingerie. There were two rooms.
My sister was now gone. My mom was in the other room, talking with the man who ran the store, possibly about buying something for me. I looked at the stuff in the front room. I found a lot of stuff I liked. I wanted to try it on, but not in front of my mom or the man. I didn't want them to know about my lingerie fetish.
In some other area was a small hallway with a door at the end. Mexican workers would come in and out of the door. At one point they left the door open. I saw that beyond the door was a coin-op laundromat.
I thought, I could just come to the laundromat when my mom and the man aren't here. Then while I'm doing my laundry I can come in here and try stuff on. I can use this back door, so nobody will even know I've come in here. They'll all think I'm still in the laundromat!
I walked into the laundromat to make sure it was for the public. It now seemed like the place was a big grocery store. I walked around in the store for a while. But then I started flying around.
At some point I was laying down on the grey, concrete floor. I had blankets and maybe even something like baggage all around me. To my left were a line of people, a metal-detector gate, and an airport terminal sign listing airlines. I realized this area was an extreme shortcut to one of the New York City area airports.
I thought, I could just come here to get to the airport. It's so quick! At first I was pretty sure the shortcut was to the LaGuardia Airport. But now I looked closer at the sign. It said this was a shortcut to JFK Airport.
Dream #5
I was out walking in the woods on a sunny day. I was heading to the head of a trail that went up to the top of a smallish mountain and then along the crests of a range of mountains.
From the opposite end of the trail came a middle-aged man and his son and daughter (?). The man wore a red t-shirt and pale khaki shorts. The kids were probably blonde.
I could tell the man had sped up on seeing me to cut me off a the trailhead so he could slow me down going up the trail. But I hurried to get in front of the family. The area we had been on was a clearing, mostly grassy and shrubby. But once we turned onto the mountain trail, the area was densely covered with pine trees.
The dad was still trying to get ahead of me. But was walking too fast for him. He finally gave up and told his kids, "Let's turn around and head on back."
I was walking on the ridge of the mountain range. I was a worker at this national park or forest. It was night. There was a lot of snow on the ground. I was thinking about how I would describe my job to people.
I stopped and looked out at a point where the trail edged over the slope at a sharp point. A lot of the landscape below -- probably where the trail headed -- was visible.
When I looked back at my footprints in the snow I saw that for a while I had veered off the trail and down the slop a little way. I was back on the trail now, but I couldn't figure out how I had gotten off the trail in the first place.
I walked down to the footprints then continued backwards, back up to the trail, and then back to a gate-like set of rock walls through fell which a shaft of incandescent light.
I was about to walk back through this gate, as if I were now continuing backward. But when I turned right and into the gate, I started a white wolf. The wolf jumped up and trotted down a path that went straight down the slope from the gate. I noticed that the wolf had small patches of grey fur on its sides.
The wolf stopped trotting away at a certain distance. It turned to look at me. There was no incandescent light. The light was now just moonlight.
I was about to start walking forward instead of backward. But now saw another white wolf, this one standing and facing me on the trail, except straight and past the gate. It trotted after me a little quickly. I was afraid. But I soon figured there was no reason to be afraid. If the wolf attacked me, there was nothing I could do about it. Now the other wolf came after me, too.
I was moving backward along the trail, along a rock face, as quickly as I could to get some distance between me and the wolves but also to continue facing them. But they overtook me pretty quickly. They started nuzzling me and licking me like domestic dogs would. They seemed happy more than anything else.
I was now probably in an apartment living room or kitchen. I could look out the window and see the snow-covered mountain range in the moonlight.
The wolves, now more like dogs, ran around a kitchen table and toward me. Then they continued licking me and playing with me. The more the dogs licked me and played with me, the more they lost their whiteness and the more they turned into domestic dogs. This upset me, as if I were watching a disease in them progress.
Dream #6
My psychiatrist A was in "my apartment." She was having a session with me. But she was actually or also redecorating my house. As A went to my closet she got a call on her cell phone. She had the closet door open. She was distractedly flipping through some things (books, clothes, etc.) as she spoke on the phone.
I hoped A wouldn't notice the dirty panties in my closet. I wanted even to tell A not to file around in there.
A spoke to some man about getting some stuff for my place. In particular she mentioned some kind of wallpaper. I imagined my walls having a weird wallpaper on them. The wallpaper seemed to be flecked with gem crystals: long, thin, pale blue crystals. I was touched by such a kind through from A.
I lay on "my bed." A was off the phone. She sat in a folding chair and was arranging a wall-wide, single-shelf bookshelf. As A did this she might have been talking to me distractedly about how we needed to deal with the dirty panties in my closet. They just didn't fit in with the rest of the design.
I got a call on my cell phone. It was possibly my brother. We were probably making some kind of arrangement for seeing each other.
Dream #7
I was in a big, dark, indoor area. There were a lot of people around. But there was one group of people in particular focused on me. The people in the group seemed to be Latino. There were maybe ten people in the group. Most of the people in the group were women. In particular there were three really pretty girls.
I had been sleeping under a blanket that may have been thirty feet long. The group of people were helping me fold the blanket. I was trying not to let them help me fold up my blanket. I knew there were semen stains all over the blanket and that the blanket smelled like urine and sweat. I didn't want to let the people know that I was the kind of person who would get a blanket all dirty like that and not do anything about it.
But I couldn't stop the people from folding the blanket. I had to resign myself to the fact that they'd see how dirty my blanket was.
The blanket was now folded. The women were kind of giggling to one another about the stains on my blanket. But they didn't seem to care too much. They might have made a statement about needed to get me a new blanket.
Dream #1
I was in a locker room. The scene might have been cartoony. A few people were in with me. There was some kind of narrator talking about a superhero who had been injured. The narrator said something like the hero had been hurt by a trick played on him while he was under the Green Lantern's tutelage.
The narrator then said something having to do with flying jets, like how if you go above nine thousand (???), you either need to prepare to land, prepare to hit fourteen thousand, or know that you're going to crash.
Dream #2
I stood outside, at the top of a hill at night. I may have been on a cobblestone walkway beside or near a building. Below me were openly spaced trees maybe a one-hundred-foot slope, then flat land which became a river to my left (?).
There was a weird, bluish light slightly glowing on the tops of the smaller vegetation. The light seemed to be coming from the left. I walked toward the left to see what was making the light.
Where the river began there was a small submarine, its top part barely sticking out of the water. A blue light glowed at its top. The beam of blue light was very strong directly in front of the submarine. In front of the submarine was a man only visible in silhouette.
There was some weird pipe coming out of the submarine. It seemed to hear people, possibly even their thoughts. Then it would call out mean things to those people, which was a sign you were in trouble. I hoped the pipe wouldn't say anything mean to me.
The blue light was now gone. I saw the submarine in dark shadow. The man seemed to be smoking a cigarette.
I was in a city area, walking down a slight hill to a library. A tallish, young, white man was barreling toward me from the other direction. I rushed toward the library: I felt like the man had wanted to beat me to the door. But after I reached the door, the man kept walking.
I walked down some steps and into the basement of the library. I was looking for a specific book, but I got sidetracked by a shelf full of books by "my favorite author." I was surprised. The library had so many of the author's obscure works, including one book in particular that I din't think anybody had.
The library also had a couple collections of the author's plays. I reflected that I hadn't ever really been a fan of the author's plays. He'd try to be funny in the plays. But the humor would just be kind of flat.
I reminded myself that I needed to focus on the specific book I'd come here for. But now, as I was putting all "my favorite author's" books away, I found a pile of magazines, like People magazine. They were all "special issues" with the weird theme of the top-25 (?) people you don't want to make fun of just because they're dead. A few of the celebrities were familiar to me.
One of the magazines began with Gilda Radner. The second interview about her was with Gene Wilder. For some reason the picture of the interviewee, though, was of a pretty, elegant, blonde woman wearing a black hat and net-like veil.
I thought, I already know what Gene Wilder thought of Gilda Radner. I flipped to the first article about Radner. The theme of this article was that you shouldn't make fun of Gilda Radner, because after she got pregnant she lost a lot of weight.
There were pictures "Radner's" back in successive shots after she'd had her baby.The shots were supposed to show how much weight she'd lost. But the only difference, to my eye, from photo to photo, was that the topless "Radner" wore different skirts.
Dream #3
I was in an SUV with my family. We drove through an area like the foothills on a bright morning. I sat in the front passenger seat. My mom drove. My sister sat somewhere in the back.
I had possibly been cut from my job. Maybe my whole department had been cut. But I still had a company laptop with me. Clients were still requesting market data from me. My mom and I were laughing about how people were still interested in Nielsen market data even when they didn't have jobs anymore.
We stopped at a gas station. My mom told us to pick up something for ourselves to eat. I didn't want anything sugary. I wanted something with protein in it.
The store was maybe three times the size of a normal gas station convenience store. I went to a freezer section. There were frozen burritos. I thought, I've always liked these, and they're cheap. I looked at the price. Seventy-one cents.
I was looking for a spicy beef burrito. But I couldn't find the right box. I began shoveling through all the boxes. I started throwing all sorts of frozen-food pouches on the floor. But I still couldn't find the right burrito.
But now I looked at what I'd thrown on the floor. I found a coupe bagel sandwiches. I thought I might like one of the sausage sandwiches. I thought, Well, that's really what I was looking for all along.
Dream #4
I was in a store in a basement with my mother and sister. A lot of sunlight came in through the window. The store sold lingerie. There were two rooms.
My sister was now gone. My mom was in the other room, talking with the man who ran the store, possibly about buying something for me. I looked at the stuff in the front room. I found a lot of stuff I liked. I wanted to try it on, but not in front of my mom or the man. I didn't want them to know about my lingerie fetish.
In some other area was a small hallway with a door at the end. Mexican workers would come in and out of the door. At one point they left the door open. I saw that beyond the door was a coin-op laundromat.
I thought, I could just come to the laundromat when my mom and the man aren't here. Then while I'm doing my laundry I can come in here and try stuff on. I can use this back door, so nobody will even know I've come in here. They'll all think I'm still in the laundromat!
I walked into the laundromat to make sure it was for the public. It now seemed like the place was a big grocery store. I walked around in the store for a while. But then I started flying around.
At some point I was laying down on the grey, concrete floor. I had blankets and maybe even something like baggage all around me. To my left were a line of people, a metal-detector gate, and an airport terminal sign listing airlines. I realized this area was an extreme shortcut to one of the New York City area airports.
I thought, I could just come here to get to the airport. It's so quick! At first I was pretty sure the shortcut was to the LaGuardia Airport. But now I looked closer at the sign. It said this was a shortcut to JFK Airport.
Dream #5
I was out walking in the woods on a sunny day. I was heading to the head of a trail that went up to the top of a smallish mountain and then along the crests of a range of mountains.
From the opposite end of the trail came a middle-aged man and his son and daughter (?). The man wore a red t-shirt and pale khaki shorts. The kids were probably blonde.
I could tell the man had sped up on seeing me to cut me off a the trailhead so he could slow me down going up the trail. But I hurried to get in front of the family. The area we had been on was a clearing, mostly grassy and shrubby. But once we turned onto the mountain trail, the area was densely covered with pine trees.
The dad was still trying to get ahead of me. But was walking too fast for him. He finally gave up and told his kids, "Let's turn around and head on back."
I was walking on the ridge of the mountain range. I was a worker at this national park or forest. It was night. There was a lot of snow on the ground. I was thinking about how I would describe my job to people.
I stopped and looked out at a point where the trail edged over the slope at a sharp point. A lot of the landscape below -- probably where the trail headed -- was visible.
When I looked back at my footprints in the snow I saw that for a while I had veered off the trail and down the slop a little way. I was back on the trail now, but I couldn't figure out how I had gotten off the trail in the first place.
I walked down to the footprints then continued backwards, back up to the trail, and then back to a gate-like set of rock walls through fell which a shaft of incandescent light.
I was about to walk back through this gate, as if I were now continuing backward. But when I turned right and into the gate, I started a white wolf. The wolf jumped up and trotted down a path that went straight down the slope from the gate. I noticed that the wolf had small patches of grey fur on its sides.
The wolf stopped trotting away at a certain distance. It turned to look at me. There was no incandescent light. The light was now just moonlight.
I was about to start walking forward instead of backward. But now saw another white wolf, this one standing and facing me on the trail, except straight and past the gate. It trotted after me a little quickly. I was afraid. But I soon figured there was no reason to be afraid. If the wolf attacked me, there was nothing I could do about it. Now the other wolf came after me, too.
I was moving backward along the trail, along a rock face, as quickly as I could to get some distance between me and the wolves but also to continue facing them. But they overtook me pretty quickly. They started nuzzling me and licking me like domestic dogs would. They seemed happy more than anything else.
I was now probably in an apartment living room or kitchen. I could look out the window and see the snow-covered mountain range in the moonlight.
The wolves, now more like dogs, ran around a kitchen table and toward me. Then they continued licking me and playing with me. The more the dogs licked me and played with me, the more they lost their whiteness and the more they turned into domestic dogs. This upset me, as if I were watching a disease in them progress.
Dream #6
My psychiatrist A was in "my apartment." She was having a session with me. But she was actually or also redecorating my house. As A went to my closet she got a call on her cell phone. She had the closet door open. She was distractedly flipping through some things (books, clothes, etc.) as she spoke on the phone.
I hoped A wouldn't notice the dirty panties in my closet. I wanted even to tell A not to file around in there.
A spoke to some man about getting some stuff for my place. In particular she mentioned some kind of wallpaper. I imagined my walls having a weird wallpaper on them. The wallpaper seemed to be flecked with gem crystals: long, thin, pale blue crystals. I was touched by such a kind through from A.
I lay on "my bed." A was off the phone. She sat in a folding chair and was arranging a wall-wide, single-shelf bookshelf. As A did this she might have been talking to me distractedly about how we needed to deal with the dirty panties in my closet. They just didn't fit in with the rest of the design.
I got a call on my cell phone. It was possibly my brother. We were probably making some kind of arrangement for seeing each other.
Dream #7
I was in a big, dark, indoor area. There were a lot of people around. But there was one group of people in particular focused on me. The people in the group seemed to be Latino. There were maybe ten people in the group. Most of the people in the group were women. In particular there were three really pretty girls.
I had been sleeping under a blanket that may have been thirty feet long. The group of people were helping me fold the blanket. I was trying not to let them help me fold up my blanket. I knew there were semen stains all over the blanket and that the blanket smelled like urine and sweat. I didn't want to let the people know that I was the kind of person who would get a blanket all dirty like that and not do anything about it.
But I couldn't stop the people from folding the blanket. I had to resign myself to the fact that they'd see how dirty my blanket was.
The blanket was now folded. The women were kind of giggling to one another about the stains on my blanket. But they didn't seem to care too much. They might have made a statement about needed to get me a new blanket.
(1/18/08) mother stalling me
(Entered in paper journal at 5:45 PM on Q-train from Manhattan to Brooklyn.)
Dream #1
It was daytime, maybe late morning. I was in a car with my mother. I was trying to get somewhere so I could do my job. I was mad because my mom was stalling, driving me all over the place.
My mom got mad and told me, "Don't get smart with me. I can prove you're crazy. They'll make you stay with me." I was mad, but I quieted down.
We were now doing my job, which was something like posting paper flyers onto telephone poles.
Dream #1
It was daytime, maybe late morning. I was in a car with my mother. I was trying to get somewhere so I could do my job. I was mad because my mom was stalling, driving me all over the place.
My mom got mad and told me, "Don't get smart with me. I can prove you're crazy. They'll make you stay with me." I was mad, but I quieted down.
We were now doing my job, which was something like posting paper flyers onto telephone poles.
(1/19/08) burning the woman/monster; ritz-carlton service; coppola's generous man; sawyerpunk
(Entered in paper journal at 9:40 AM at Starbucks on 43rd Street and Third Avenue.)
Dream #1
I was in a place that looked like a living room but which must also have been something like a space station. I watched two people closed into a bedroom in a dark hallway. Of the two people in the first bedroom, one closed the other into a small closet. I couldn't see this; I just knew it. The one then tortured the other. I sat out in this living room area, which was also dim and was set so it was to the back of the (three) bedrooms and opposite the hallway.
I sat with a person I could not see and listened to the "other" person being tortured. The person sitting next to me said, "You better not think anything bad is happening in there."
I thought about it for a minute and convinced myself I hadn't heard anything. But then I heard the tortured person scream. I knew I needed to stop that person from being tortured.
The person who had been sitting by me was now somewhere else, possibly in the hallway. The person shouted, "You think it's going to be easy to think that person's being tortured? Now you'll have to deal with me! Or are you afraid?"
I snuck around the corner and into the hallway to find the person, who, I assumed, had transformed into a monster. I had some sort of weapon like a sword. But now it was like I was back in the dark room and heading toward the hallway.
Something happened in the hallway, an encounter with the person/monster, maybe even with the tortured person. Now I needed to go back to the hallway and fight the person/monster again.
I had a severed head, which I attached to a thick rope and lit on fire. I whirled this head around clockwise, on my right side, as I walked around the corner and back toward the hallway.
The person/monster was in the hallway, yelling about how afraid I was. I managed to use the severed head to catch the person/monster on fire. The person/monster and I stood face-to-face in a lit living room up near the corner of the bedroom in which, apparently, were the tortured person and torturer.
The person/monster still wasn't quite a person yet. But now "it" was a woman, like Rachel in Blade Runner. The person/monster wore a red, velvety night robe, which was lit with flames, as if a film of flammable material coated the robe, so that it was burning instead of the robe.
The woman said something like I hadn't gotten rid of her yet, nor would I want to get rid of her if I wanted everything to be alright with the people I was trying to save, as if by killing her I'd offend her so she would want to hurt the people even more than she did now.
The woman opened her robe. She was naked underneath. Her body was white, delicate, elegant, completely unburnt. I was angry. I swung the flaming at at the woman again, trying to catch her body on fire. I might have succeeded.
Dream #2
I was in a hotel room, possibly at a Ritz-Carlton. It was my boss BS' room, but there were a few people in the room, as if there were some work-related task going on.
BS told me he needed me to stay at the hotel. I said okay. I looked out a door. As I backed out the door and sat the door close in front of me, I noticed how that room had been wide and tall, ornate, like a French seventeenth-century (?) room. The "bed" I would sleep on was just a mattress, maybe eight feet by eight feet by six inches, set into a niche in the floor. The bed was the last thing I saw as the door closed.
I was now in a room all by myself. The other room seemed to have been lit by natural light, as if by a large window. This room had no windows and was lit by a light like a soft museum light. The room was smaller, but still spacious, with soft green walls. It was like an entry room, like a little foyer. The front door was to my left as I faced the door to the larger room.
I was on the phone with room service. I may have been trying to get a meal. But room service didn't want to help me. They thought I was just a nobody. I might have told them that if they didn't help me I was going to let BS know. Room service suddenly changed their attitude and were willing to help me. I told them to bring the meal at a certain time. I was still upset that room service wouldn't help me out of common courtesy.
I walked out the front door. The day was snowy. It was like we were in the mountains or the wilderness somewhere. I was now driving. I was by myself out on a road like a road on the outskirts of a suburban area. It was late afternoon, with a heron-grey sky and paper-yellow band of horizon. I thought I would need to turn left, onto and across a wide, slightly snowy field, to get to someplace where I should have been or was scheduled to be.
I turned left and drove up onto the sidewalk and partly onto the field. But then I thought, What am I doing? I don't need to go this way. I might no longer have been sure of where I was going after all. I might have turned back out onto the road so that I was driving back to where I had been driving from.
Dream #3
I sat onto the hood of a car, on the passenger side. I lay back against the windshield. The street the car was on was like a suburban street, but it was busy, and down at the end of it was a street as bright and busy as Times Square. I could even see a movie theater, old style, right at the intersection. Cars and people passed in front of the theater. The day was warm and sunny.
My brother walked up to me, on my right side, from behind. He aid he was getting ready to go to my dad's house pretty soon. I think I was kind of planning to go along. But then I decided not to. I wanted my brother to have all my dad's attention. I wanted my brother to feel like he was liked the best. My brother may have told me about going to see a movie with my dad. I told him I hoped they would have fun.
I thought about a new movie by Francis Ford Coppola. It began in black and white, like a silent film, but all the people in it were modern. A lot of people piled onto a silver train. They were all packed in so much together that people were being pushed partway out windows.
I liked watching as the train pulled away. It was just one long shot. It was interesting to see the different people through the windows (very small windows, like on airplanes) and how all the different people were observing and reacting to their surroundings as the train pulled away.
Now the train had arrived at something like a rest stop. A waiter came along the outside of the train and passed beer and soda in to people as they would pass money out to him.
I now saw inside. The view was now more like real life than like a silent movie. A man in his twenties or thirties, very put-together and handsome, was pulling some soda in through the window. He sat on a tall stool in a bar-like area.
A family -- an oldish, fattish, baldish man and some young children, maybe blonde girls -- had missed their chance to pass their money out the window for some soda. The young man said, "Oh, it's no problem. You can have some of mine."
The older man said, "Are you sure? We really couldn't."
The younger man said, "Please. I have too much for just myself." He poured soda from a big pitcher into smaller glasses.
Dream #4
I walked into a big room like a high school gymnasium. Daylight came in through the windows. There were about fifty people around an elevated stage on which a rock band was playing. The crowd and the rock band may have been mostly or all women. At first I thought the singer was a man. The song had been about trying to get a girl. But now I saw the singer was a girl.
Now it seemed like there were a whole lot of people in the band. The band members had a grungy, but well-made-up look, very clean, but somehow tough and plain. Their clothes were mostly black and very dark, dull green. Even their instruments seemed to have a clunky but fashionable look, like they were made out of a lot of black-coated cords. I liked it.
The crowd intimidated me. I thought they'd think I was here just because I thought I could hit on girls -- the crowd was, except for me, all girls. I was afraid they'd try to discourage me from what they'd thought I was here for by showing me that they were all gay. But I didn't want to hit on the girls. I was here for the music, which I was really enjoying.
I walked away, back away and to the left of the crowd, to a little side room with a folding chair, a guitar, and an amp. I picked up the guitar and noticed it was actually a bass. The strings were coated in black plastic, like electrical wires or amp cords. But they were all thinner than the fattest bass string. The guitar body was also small for a bass -- maybe guitar-sized instead of bass-sized. The body of the guitar was shaped almost like a Les Paul guitar. It was gold-glittery with a white pick-guard.
I thought this guitar was incredibly cleverly made. It must have been owned by someone who was here right now. It simply proved, I thought, what a talented bunch of people were here right now.
I held the guitar as if I were playing it a little. Some girls toward the back of the crowd looked at me, visibly annoyed. They thought I was only playing the guitar to impress them, so I could hit on them once I got their attention.
To defend myself I cried out, "It's the guitar! Isn't it cool? It's a seven-string bass! Isn't that witty?"
But the girls just kept looking at me like I was an idiot.
I thought I would try to find a friend and talk to him about the guitar. I thought that would prove that I wasn't trying to share my excitement with the girls simply to get their attention and then hit on them. I yelled out for a high school friend of mine. "JW! JW! He has to be here. Nobody else could own a bass this witty."
I stood out on an empty, industrial street corner at the top of a hill. It was a hot day. A man, probably JW, sat on a plastic and metal chair, playing the bass, which sounded a lot like a guitar the way Woody Guthrie might play it.
JW was looking at me suspiciously. He knew I'd been playing his guitar. He thought I'd been trying to steal it. To prove I hadn't been trying to steal the guitar I began singing lyrics along with JW's Woody Guthrie-esque playing. The song was a "funny" blend of old-style, back-hills music and modern topics and objects.
As I sang I walked in the gutter, which was littered with all kinds of garbage, mostly wet and slimy. I started singing about Tom Sawyer. I noticed I was barefoot. I walked carefully around wet, slimy piles of grainy material like litter-box filling. I got back up onto the sidewalk. I was worried that something disgusting had seeped into my skin from the dampness of the street near the piles of cat-litter.
Now JW and I were both singing the song about Tom Sawyer. it seemed as we sang the song that I had an image of the cover of the Norton edition of Roughing It before my eyes.
Dream #1
I was in a place that looked like a living room but which must also have been something like a space station. I watched two people closed into a bedroom in a dark hallway. Of the two people in the first bedroom, one closed the other into a small closet. I couldn't see this; I just knew it. The one then tortured the other. I sat out in this living room area, which was also dim and was set so it was to the back of the (three) bedrooms and opposite the hallway.
I sat with a person I could not see and listened to the "other" person being tortured. The person sitting next to me said, "You better not think anything bad is happening in there."
I thought about it for a minute and convinced myself I hadn't heard anything. But then I heard the tortured person scream. I knew I needed to stop that person from being tortured.
The person who had been sitting by me was now somewhere else, possibly in the hallway. The person shouted, "You think it's going to be easy to think that person's being tortured? Now you'll have to deal with me! Or are you afraid?"
I snuck around the corner and into the hallway to find the person, who, I assumed, had transformed into a monster. I had some sort of weapon like a sword. But now it was like I was back in the dark room and heading toward the hallway.
Something happened in the hallway, an encounter with the person/monster, maybe even with the tortured person. Now I needed to go back to the hallway and fight the person/monster again.
I had a severed head, which I attached to a thick rope and lit on fire. I whirled this head around clockwise, on my right side, as I walked around the corner and back toward the hallway.
The person/monster was in the hallway, yelling about how afraid I was. I managed to use the severed head to catch the person/monster on fire. The person/monster and I stood face-to-face in a lit living room up near the corner of the bedroom in which, apparently, were the tortured person and torturer.
The person/monster still wasn't quite a person yet. But now "it" was a woman, like Rachel in Blade Runner. The person/monster wore a red, velvety night robe, which was lit with flames, as if a film of flammable material coated the robe, so that it was burning instead of the robe.
The woman said something like I hadn't gotten rid of her yet, nor would I want to get rid of her if I wanted everything to be alright with the people I was trying to save, as if by killing her I'd offend her so she would want to hurt the people even more than she did now.
The woman opened her robe. She was naked underneath. Her body was white, delicate, elegant, completely unburnt. I was angry. I swung the flaming at at the woman again, trying to catch her body on fire. I might have succeeded.
Dream #2
I was in a hotel room, possibly at a Ritz-Carlton. It was my boss BS' room, but there were a few people in the room, as if there were some work-related task going on.
BS told me he needed me to stay at the hotel. I said okay. I looked out a door. As I backed out the door and sat the door close in front of me, I noticed how that room had been wide and tall, ornate, like a French seventeenth-century (?) room. The "bed" I would sleep on was just a mattress, maybe eight feet by eight feet by six inches, set into a niche in the floor. The bed was the last thing I saw as the door closed.
I was now in a room all by myself. The other room seemed to have been lit by natural light, as if by a large window. This room had no windows and was lit by a light like a soft museum light. The room was smaller, but still spacious, with soft green walls. It was like an entry room, like a little foyer. The front door was to my left as I faced the door to the larger room.
I was on the phone with room service. I may have been trying to get a meal. But room service didn't want to help me. They thought I was just a nobody. I might have told them that if they didn't help me I was going to let BS know. Room service suddenly changed their attitude and were willing to help me. I told them to bring the meal at a certain time. I was still upset that room service wouldn't help me out of common courtesy.
I walked out the front door. The day was snowy. It was like we were in the mountains or the wilderness somewhere. I was now driving. I was by myself out on a road like a road on the outskirts of a suburban area. It was late afternoon, with a heron-grey sky and paper-yellow band of horizon. I thought I would need to turn left, onto and across a wide, slightly snowy field, to get to someplace where I should have been or was scheduled to be.
I turned left and drove up onto the sidewalk and partly onto the field. But then I thought, What am I doing? I don't need to go this way. I might no longer have been sure of where I was going after all. I might have turned back out onto the road so that I was driving back to where I had been driving from.
Dream #3
I sat onto the hood of a car, on the passenger side. I lay back against the windshield. The street the car was on was like a suburban street, but it was busy, and down at the end of it was a street as bright and busy as Times Square. I could even see a movie theater, old style, right at the intersection. Cars and people passed in front of the theater. The day was warm and sunny.
My brother walked up to me, on my right side, from behind. He aid he was getting ready to go to my dad's house pretty soon. I think I was kind of planning to go along. But then I decided not to. I wanted my brother to have all my dad's attention. I wanted my brother to feel like he was liked the best. My brother may have told me about going to see a movie with my dad. I told him I hoped they would have fun.
I thought about a new movie by Francis Ford Coppola. It began in black and white, like a silent film, but all the people in it were modern. A lot of people piled onto a silver train. They were all packed in so much together that people were being pushed partway out windows.
I liked watching as the train pulled away. It was just one long shot. It was interesting to see the different people through the windows (very small windows, like on airplanes) and how all the different people were observing and reacting to their surroundings as the train pulled away.
Now the train had arrived at something like a rest stop. A waiter came along the outside of the train and passed beer and soda in to people as they would pass money out to him.
I now saw inside. The view was now more like real life than like a silent movie. A man in his twenties or thirties, very put-together and handsome, was pulling some soda in through the window. He sat on a tall stool in a bar-like area.
A family -- an oldish, fattish, baldish man and some young children, maybe blonde girls -- had missed their chance to pass their money out the window for some soda. The young man said, "Oh, it's no problem. You can have some of mine."
The older man said, "Are you sure? We really couldn't."
The younger man said, "Please. I have too much for just myself." He poured soda from a big pitcher into smaller glasses.
Dream #4
I walked into a big room like a high school gymnasium. Daylight came in through the windows. There were about fifty people around an elevated stage on which a rock band was playing. The crowd and the rock band may have been mostly or all women. At first I thought the singer was a man. The song had been about trying to get a girl. But now I saw the singer was a girl.
Now it seemed like there were a whole lot of people in the band. The band members had a grungy, but well-made-up look, very clean, but somehow tough and plain. Their clothes were mostly black and very dark, dull green. Even their instruments seemed to have a clunky but fashionable look, like they were made out of a lot of black-coated cords. I liked it.
The crowd intimidated me. I thought they'd think I was here just because I thought I could hit on girls -- the crowd was, except for me, all girls. I was afraid they'd try to discourage me from what they'd thought I was here for by showing me that they were all gay. But I didn't want to hit on the girls. I was here for the music, which I was really enjoying.
I walked away, back away and to the left of the crowd, to a little side room with a folding chair, a guitar, and an amp. I picked up the guitar and noticed it was actually a bass. The strings were coated in black plastic, like electrical wires or amp cords. But they were all thinner than the fattest bass string. The guitar body was also small for a bass -- maybe guitar-sized instead of bass-sized. The body of the guitar was shaped almost like a Les Paul guitar. It was gold-glittery with a white pick-guard.
I thought this guitar was incredibly cleverly made. It must have been owned by someone who was here right now. It simply proved, I thought, what a talented bunch of people were here right now.
I held the guitar as if I were playing it a little. Some girls toward the back of the crowd looked at me, visibly annoyed. They thought I was only playing the guitar to impress them, so I could hit on them once I got their attention.
To defend myself I cried out, "It's the guitar! Isn't it cool? It's a seven-string bass! Isn't that witty?"
But the girls just kept looking at me like I was an idiot.
I thought I would try to find a friend and talk to him about the guitar. I thought that would prove that I wasn't trying to share my excitement with the girls simply to get their attention and then hit on them. I yelled out for a high school friend of mine. "JW! JW! He has to be here. Nobody else could own a bass this witty."
I stood out on an empty, industrial street corner at the top of a hill. It was a hot day. A man, probably JW, sat on a plastic and metal chair, playing the bass, which sounded a lot like a guitar the way Woody Guthrie might play it.
JW was looking at me suspiciously. He knew I'd been playing his guitar. He thought I'd been trying to steal it. To prove I hadn't been trying to steal the guitar I began singing lyrics along with JW's Woody Guthrie-esque playing. The song was a "funny" blend of old-style, back-hills music and modern topics and objects.
As I sang I walked in the gutter, which was littered with all kinds of garbage, mostly wet and slimy. I started singing about Tom Sawyer. I noticed I was barefoot. I walked carefully around wet, slimy piles of grainy material like litter-box filling. I got back up onto the sidewalk. I was worried that something disgusting had seeped into my skin from the dampness of the street near the piles of cat-litter.
Now JW and I were both singing the song about Tom Sawyer. it seemed as we sang the song that I had an image of the cover of the Norton edition of Roughing It before my eyes.
(1/20/08) art-books-feces; psychology: earth, cults, flying saucers
(Entered in paper journal at 8:28 AM at Flying Saucer cafe in Brooklyn.)
Dream #1
I was with my grandfather and a couple other family members in a room, like a small museum. I was looking out the window. The scenery outside was moving, like I was in a car. The scenery was like a cemetery. My family members and I were talking about how the exhibit we had seen was disappointing because it didn't employ the principles of recycling. Because of this, we argued, the exhibit lacked feeling.
We "passed" a hill that looked cut-away or sectioned so we could see the roots of the grass and a nearby tree. Something like a red glob or ball rolled along the hill, then merged into the ground. This, my grandfather said, was the one work of art he liked, because it employed the principles of recycling. The ball reappeared from the sectioned area of the hill and rolled down the slope and across the road, as if it were willfully coming toward the building, and toward me in particular.
We all looked away from the window. My grandfather said we were getting ready to leave. I now sat on a tall chair like a swivel chair that was as tall as a library or ladder, with rollers or wheels at the bottom. The room was warm and warm-colored. In the corner of the room sat an old man who looked like the old version of the Tim Roth character in Youth Without Youth. He was like the curator of the museum.
The room was small but very elegant, modern. It was understated, except that on the walls were all kinds of art works and artifacts. A lot of them had the appearance of geode slices: the glassy, ringed, vivid-colored look. There were also a couple of tall, thin bookshelves along the walls.
Everybody else had pretty much left. I was following them. But I had to linger to see some of the items on the wall. There was something about their ordering which didn't seem completely satisfactory. But the pieces themselves were quite beautiful. Nevertheless, I felt bad liking the pieces because my grandfather had just commented how the pieces had no artistic quality.
I was still moving through the room on the tall chair. I went out the door, which was apparently tall enough to allow the tall chair through! I turned back before closing the door. I told the man in the corner of the room, "Goodbye, and thank you, Dr. Neuman." The man might have been reading a book. He waved very slightly, but kindly.
The door closed as I thought, Is that man's name really Neuman? I now saw a green and brass (?) nameplate on the door that said "Dr. Ed Neuman." I rolled (on the tall chair) down a ramping hallway to catch upp with my family.
I was now in a basement with my mother. I was standing on the floor, no longer sitting in the tall chair. My mom and I were heading toward a front door, but we were waiting for one or two more members of our family to catch up with us. In the meantime we were picking up and reorganizing a bunch of books that were on the floor.
I held some one-word-titled book by Mario Puzo. The cover was black, Puzo's name was lettered white, and the title (beginning with the letter "c"?) was lettered red.
My mom and I were talking about my grandfather, who sat upstairs, as if he were now sitting in Neuman's place. My grandpa was too sick and tired to see us out of the building, but he had been very happy to see us. After seeing us, he even felt like he had more energy.
My mom said, "We should tease him and tell him that if he has so much energy he should come down here and help us rearrange these books! No, I'm just kidding. We don't want him to feel bad or obliged. If he did come down here, the physical work would really hurt him."
I sat on a couch piled with books. Before me were books. I held a book in my hand. My mom may still have been talking. I looked at the book's binding. The top gave the last name of the author: Ligasa or Lisaga.
A band below the name showed a painting of a woman like Liberty in Delacroix's painting of the French Revolution. The woman was charging forward and carrying a flag. But she was looking backward, as if calling the troops, instead of looking forward like in the painting.
I looked at the back of the book, mainly because I somehow caught the name "Freud" on the back or the binding of the book. Apparently the book was by a Latin American author, and was thus acclaimed. The description of the book went something like, "A Native American is wounded in the war" (World War I?) "and looks back on his life. The works of Sigmund Freud have put forward the idea that a person's experiences of his past are not linear but move back and forth through different time periods."
A boy who was supposed to be my second oldest nephew sat to my left. He was a black boy, maybe ten or eleven years old. My mom said something like, "He's finally having less trouble going to the bathroom."
My nephew told me, "I go to the bathroom every morning. I know the pieces of poop when they come out of me. I even know their names. But I'm not like other people. I know their names before they come out of me. I meet them at night. I see them, and I know what shape they'll be. I tell them, 'XXXXX, you aren't going to stay in me! You are going to get out!'"
I could tell my nephew was afraid about having to do this, but that he was proud that he was able to do it. He seemed to need urgently to tell me about this.
We all headed out into a hallway which (now) led to the front door. The hall was white, perhaps with marble floors and walls and a red carpet.
Somewhere there might have been a weird, futuristic-looking altar-type structure, very tall, made out of an aluminum-like substance. The legs were tin rods that supported a wide "bowl" topped with a flat disk that had a hole in its center. This "bowl" was filled with my nephew's feces, as if each piece he had gotten rid of were saved here and treated as sacred.
Dream #2
I was looking through a list of courses to take at a college like a community college. There was a specific philosophy class I wanted to take because it seemed to discuss issues I had currently been involving myself in. But I saw that there was a prerequisite course to this course. I thought, Why should I have to take a prerequisite? I'm not taking this class to get a degree. I'm just interested.
But I looked at the prerequisite course anyway. It was called "Psychology: Earth." It was a short course and was done by video. I now saw that after this course I'd have to take even another course before I could take the philosophy course I'd wanted. This other prerequisite course was called "Psychology: Cults and Flying Saucers." It was also a video course.
Dream #1
I was with my grandfather and a couple other family members in a room, like a small museum. I was looking out the window. The scenery outside was moving, like I was in a car. The scenery was like a cemetery. My family members and I were talking about how the exhibit we had seen was disappointing because it didn't employ the principles of recycling. Because of this, we argued, the exhibit lacked feeling.
We "passed" a hill that looked cut-away or sectioned so we could see the roots of the grass and a nearby tree. Something like a red glob or ball rolled along the hill, then merged into the ground. This, my grandfather said, was the one work of art he liked, because it employed the principles of recycling. The ball reappeared from the sectioned area of the hill and rolled down the slope and across the road, as if it were willfully coming toward the building, and toward me in particular.
We all looked away from the window. My grandfather said we were getting ready to leave. I now sat on a tall chair like a swivel chair that was as tall as a library or ladder, with rollers or wheels at the bottom. The room was warm and warm-colored. In the corner of the room sat an old man who looked like the old version of the Tim Roth character in Youth Without Youth. He was like the curator of the museum.
The room was small but very elegant, modern. It was understated, except that on the walls were all kinds of art works and artifacts. A lot of them had the appearance of geode slices: the glassy, ringed, vivid-colored look. There were also a couple of tall, thin bookshelves along the walls.
Everybody else had pretty much left. I was following them. But I had to linger to see some of the items on the wall. There was something about their ordering which didn't seem completely satisfactory. But the pieces themselves were quite beautiful. Nevertheless, I felt bad liking the pieces because my grandfather had just commented how the pieces had no artistic quality.
I was still moving through the room on the tall chair. I went out the door, which was apparently tall enough to allow the tall chair through! I turned back before closing the door. I told the man in the corner of the room, "Goodbye, and thank you, Dr. Neuman." The man might have been reading a book. He waved very slightly, but kindly.
The door closed as I thought, Is that man's name really Neuman? I now saw a green and brass (?) nameplate on the door that said "Dr. Ed Neuman." I rolled (on the tall chair) down a ramping hallway to catch upp with my family.
I was now in a basement with my mother. I was standing on the floor, no longer sitting in the tall chair. My mom and I were heading toward a front door, but we were waiting for one or two more members of our family to catch up with us. In the meantime we were picking up and reorganizing a bunch of books that were on the floor.
I held some one-word-titled book by Mario Puzo. The cover was black, Puzo's name was lettered white, and the title (beginning with the letter "c"?) was lettered red.
My mom and I were talking about my grandfather, who sat upstairs, as if he were now sitting in Neuman's place. My grandpa was too sick and tired to see us out of the building, but he had been very happy to see us. After seeing us, he even felt like he had more energy.
My mom said, "We should tease him and tell him that if he has so much energy he should come down here and help us rearrange these books! No, I'm just kidding. We don't want him to feel bad or obliged. If he did come down here, the physical work would really hurt him."
I sat on a couch piled with books. Before me were books. I held a book in my hand. My mom may still have been talking. I looked at the book's binding. The top gave the last name of the author: Ligasa or Lisaga.
A band below the name showed a painting of a woman like Liberty in Delacroix's painting of the French Revolution. The woman was charging forward and carrying a flag. But she was looking backward, as if calling the troops, instead of looking forward like in the painting.
I looked at the back of the book, mainly because I somehow caught the name "Freud" on the back or the binding of the book. Apparently the book was by a Latin American author, and was thus acclaimed. The description of the book went something like, "A Native American is wounded in the war" (World War I?) "and looks back on his life. The works of Sigmund Freud have put forward the idea that a person's experiences of his past are not linear but move back and forth through different time periods."
A boy who was supposed to be my second oldest nephew sat to my left. He was a black boy, maybe ten or eleven years old. My mom said something like, "He's finally having less trouble going to the bathroom."
My nephew told me, "I go to the bathroom every morning. I know the pieces of poop when they come out of me. I even know their names. But I'm not like other people. I know their names before they come out of me. I meet them at night. I see them, and I know what shape they'll be. I tell them, 'XXXXX, you aren't going to stay in me! You are going to get out!'"
I could tell my nephew was afraid about having to do this, but that he was proud that he was able to do it. He seemed to need urgently to tell me about this.
We all headed out into a hallway which (now) led to the front door. The hall was white, perhaps with marble floors and walls and a red carpet.
Somewhere there might have been a weird, futuristic-looking altar-type structure, very tall, made out of an aluminum-like substance. The legs were tin rods that supported a wide "bowl" topped with a flat disk that had a hole in its center. This "bowl" was filled with my nephew's feces, as if each piece he had gotten rid of were saved here and treated as sacred.
Dream #2
I was looking through a list of courses to take at a college like a community college. There was a specific philosophy class I wanted to take because it seemed to discuss issues I had currently been involving myself in. But I saw that there was a prerequisite course to this course. I thought, Why should I have to take a prerequisite? I'm not taking this class to get a degree. I'm just interested.
But I looked at the prerequisite course anyway. It was called "Psychology: Earth." It was a short course and was done by video. I now saw that after this course I'd have to take even another course before I could take the philosophy course I'd wanted. This other prerequisite course was called "Psychology: Cults and Flying Saucers." It was also a video course.
Saturday, January 26, 2013
(1/21/08) not an airport; yo-yo kiva; a real hole in the wall
(Entered in paper journal at 9:15 AM at Starbucks on Christopher Street in Manhattan.)
Dream #1
I was in a bus or van being driven to the airport. It was a grey, drizzly day. I sat near the front of the bus. The bus was empty except for me, the driver, and another man. The other man was slightly nervous. He told the driver, "I hear that when bad weather makes flight delays, they sometimes reroute you through different cities on different planes."
We drove along a group of planes that looked weird. One was a small jet with a very sleek face, like a Concorde mixed with a fighter jet. Another was an enormous plane with a very tall bulkhead (?).
The driver assured the man (as we dove around a large building with passenger drop-off areas for passenger for some airlines) that even if his flight got rerouted, he most likely wouldn't have to get on a flight that he didn't like.
I thought to myself, noticing that the driver was making a second round around a large building, that my flight was set to leave at XXXXX. It was already 12:19. Most airlines liked you to be present one hour early. But here I was, less than half an hour from my takeoff time, and still on the bus (which now seemed a lot like a plane).
I noticed that instead of airline signs in front of the building we presently drove around, there were signs for supermarkets (Albertsons?) and drug stores.
The driver said, "I don't see why I haven't found your airlines yet."
With some hesitance, not wanting to tell the driver how to do his job, I replied, "You drove the wrong way off the highway. This isn't the airport. It's just a shopping center." I pointed to my right and said, "The airport is back over that way and on the other side of the highway."
Dream #2
I and a small group of people looked down on a cylindrical hole dug in the ground. The hole was about eight feet deep and twenty feet in diameter. The floor and walls were smooth, probably soil. In the center of the floor was a small square dug out of the soil. There was also a rectangular niche of soil dug out all the way up one section of wall. Near the square on the floor was a pile of soil.
A blue toy like a yo-yo had been buried at a precise spot under that soil. Now we would fill the entire cylinder with soil, thus immovably fixing the blue toy in its spot.
But now we heard that GPS or satellite measurements showed that we had placed the toy in the incorrect space by just a few feet. We would have to unbury the toy, get rid of the soil, relocate the toy, then bury it under a pile of soil again, and again confirm our location.
I suddenly felt like all this activity was a joke, or that the people who were telling us how to do the job were laughing at us for actually taking such pains with the job, since it was all pretty useless, anyway. But I couldn't let myself believe that the job was useless, and I couldn't let myself believe that we were off in our burial location of the toy.
There might have been a white "X" somewhere on the ground, which had determined my choice. I felt like the "X" proved that I had put the yo-yo in the correct spot -- though the "X" was not under the pile of soil (i.e. it was not in the current location of the toy) and was almost on the opposite side of the circle. I was going to tell the people with me to fill the hole up as things were, that we were fine.
Dream #3
I was in a bus driving down a city street at night. I was a beautiful, rich woman. We drove down a street full of shop fronts and hole-in-the-wall bars. I thought wistfully about just relaxing and going into hole-in-the-wall bars. But I knew I couldn't. As the beautiful, rich woman, I had elevated myself to a position where I could no longer just pop into places like that. I could only allow myself to go to high-class places and events, like the one I was going to right now.
I saw one particular bar, which seemed to have no front wall at all. I stood in front of it, possibly as myself. The place was small, dimly candlelit, with a few tall-backed, black chairs, a couple tables, a small register-counter, and a long, black bench along the right wall.
Two women and one man walked around inside, talking about some way they had managed to trick somebody into giving them a good deal with something. One of the women, probably wearing a tiny, fluttery, pink skirt and a white tank-top, looked at me as if she were sexually attracted to me.
I walked into the bar. The two girls sat on the bench, the man in one of the seats. I thought I would sit between the two girls, to sit next to the girl I thought liked me.
But now Mexican man wearing a baggy, black, button-up shirt and black jeans, with long hair in a ponytail, sat down between the two women and held the girl in the pink skirt. The woman was obviously the man's girl. She had only been acting like she liked me in order to trick me into liking her. The man sitting in the chair now sat next to the other girl, so that now each woman was already with a man.
The four people continued talking about how they had gotten their way, how they'd tricked someone into giving them a good deal. The four of them looked at me and spoke with me as if they wanted me to be their friend. But I thought, There's no reason. There's nobody here for me to be with.
Dream #1
I was in a bus or van being driven to the airport. It was a grey, drizzly day. I sat near the front of the bus. The bus was empty except for me, the driver, and another man. The other man was slightly nervous. He told the driver, "I hear that when bad weather makes flight delays, they sometimes reroute you through different cities on different planes."
We drove along a group of planes that looked weird. One was a small jet with a very sleek face, like a Concorde mixed with a fighter jet. Another was an enormous plane with a very tall bulkhead (?).
The driver assured the man (as we dove around a large building with passenger drop-off areas for passenger for some airlines) that even if his flight got rerouted, he most likely wouldn't have to get on a flight that he didn't like.
I thought to myself, noticing that the driver was making a second round around a large building, that my flight was set to leave at XXXXX. It was already 12:19. Most airlines liked you to be present one hour early. But here I was, less than half an hour from my takeoff time, and still on the bus (which now seemed a lot like a plane).
I noticed that instead of airline signs in front of the building we presently drove around, there were signs for supermarkets (Albertsons?) and drug stores.
The driver said, "I don't see why I haven't found your airlines yet."
With some hesitance, not wanting to tell the driver how to do his job, I replied, "You drove the wrong way off the highway. This isn't the airport. It's just a shopping center." I pointed to my right and said, "The airport is back over that way and on the other side of the highway."
Dream #2
I and a small group of people looked down on a cylindrical hole dug in the ground. The hole was about eight feet deep and twenty feet in diameter. The floor and walls were smooth, probably soil. In the center of the floor was a small square dug out of the soil. There was also a rectangular niche of soil dug out all the way up one section of wall. Near the square on the floor was a pile of soil.
A blue toy like a yo-yo had been buried at a precise spot under that soil. Now we would fill the entire cylinder with soil, thus immovably fixing the blue toy in its spot.
But now we heard that GPS or satellite measurements showed that we had placed the toy in the incorrect space by just a few feet. We would have to unbury the toy, get rid of the soil, relocate the toy, then bury it under a pile of soil again, and again confirm our location.
I suddenly felt like all this activity was a joke, or that the people who were telling us how to do the job were laughing at us for actually taking such pains with the job, since it was all pretty useless, anyway. But I couldn't let myself believe that the job was useless, and I couldn't let myself believe that we were off in our burial location of the toy.
There might have been a white "X" somewhere on the ground, which had determined my choice. I felt like the "X" proved that I had put the yo-yo in the correct spot -- though the "X" was not under the pile of soil (i.e. it was not in the current location of the toy) and was almost on the opposite side of the circle. I was going to tell the people with me to fill the hole up as things were, that we were fine.
Dream #3
I was in a bus driving down a city street at night. I was a beautiful, rich woman. We drove down a street full of shop fronts and hole-in-the-wall bars. I thought wistfully about just relaxing and going into hole-in-the-wall bars. But I knew I couldn't. As the beautiful, rich woman, I had elevated myself to a position where I could no longer just pop into places like that. I could only allow myself to go to high-class places and events, like the one I was going to right now.
I saw one particular bar, which seemed to have no front wall at all. I stood in front of it, possibly as myself. The place was small, dimly candlelit, with a few tall-backed, black chairs, a couple tables, a small register-counter, and a long, black bench along the right wall.
Two women and one man walked around inside, talking about some way they had managed to trick somebody into giving them a good deal with something. One of the women, probably wearing a tiny, fluttery, pink skirt and a white tank-top, looked at me as if she were sexually attracted to me.
I walked into the bar. The two girls sat on the bench, the man in one of the seats. I thought I would sit between the two girls, to sit next to the girl I thought liked me.
But now Mexican man wearing a baggy, black, button-up shirt and black jeans, with long hair in a ponytail, sat down between the two women and held the girl in the pink skirt. The woman was obviously the man's girl. She had only been acting like she liked me in order to trick me into liking her. The man sitting in the chair now sat next to the other girl, so that now each woman was already with a man.
The four people continued talking about how they had gotten their way, how they'd tricked someone into giving them a good deal. The four of them looked at me and spoke with me as if they wanted me to be their friend. But I thought, There's no reason. There's nobody here for me to be with.
(1/26/08) crowley's catholic wedding
(Entered in paper journal at 8 AM on Q-train from Brooklyn to Manhattan.)
Dream #1
I was driving in a car along a hill in very dark night. Down the hill I saw a city which I thought of as Albuquerque. The city was spiral, in an almost hexagonal pattern. I felt like I lived in a trailer on the outskirts of the town.
From the center of teh city the "power" went out. The very center of the city was black, lightless, except a tiny circle of light, as in the center of a pentagon. From the center the orange and yellowish lights went out, to the edge of the city. All that were left were greyish-white lights, although those lights may actually have provided half the light in the city.
I felt like the town's energy had gone out because people hadn't been conserving, and so it would go out completely if people didn't finally start conserving. I wondered about my trailer on the outskirts of town. I couldn't doubt that I, too, had not conserved. But was I wasting energy even now, while I wasn't even in the trailer? I thought I should consider every way in which I could conserve.
I was in a church. There was a wedding, possibly between my old boss and constant mentor, EB, and a blonde woman. I stood near the back of the church. The church was brightly lit and full of people. EB (?) stood at the back of the church, in business attire rather than a tuxedo. He was a couple rows ahead of me, but on his side (the left side) of the church it seemed the pews ended a couple rows up from the rows on my side, so that EB and I both stood behind the back pews of our respective sides.
I stood by the bride, who was dressed in a normal wedding gown. At one point I leaned close and spoke with the bride. She was standing. She may suddenly have been wearing a thick, pink nightgown. At this point I may also have been a woman and wearing the same thing.
I was myself again. Everybody was kneeling for part of the church service, as if this were now a regular Catholic (?) service. The bride may have knelt (in her wedding gown again) on a footstool. I may have tried to go up a couple rows to find some space available on one of the kneeling benches in the pews.
As I looked I saw a glass door to my right. Through the door I saw another sanctuary, also full of people. A couple people, my co-worker CR and a tall man with a wide, baldish head and white hair, were walking toward the door.
The man was a Lutheran minister, and he wore a collar. I thought he had come dressed up for the wedding. I had previously only seen him in regular clothes. I didn't know if he knew me, but I knew him. I was happy to see him dressed up.
I was getting ready to hold the door open for the man and CR. But the man brusquely opened the door, almost pushing me over, and walked past me, barely acknowledging me, and not acknowledging me in any friendly way. I was shocked.
I saw a sign, as if it were turned on its side. The sign was maybe eight feet long and one foot wide. There was white lettering against a red background for most of it, but on the far right side was a black and white photo of a man who looked like Aleister Crowley except with a huge, black beard and a broad-brimmed hat.
The words that took up most of the sign described this man and were pairs of adjectives separated by slashes. The description pairs weren't quite opposites, more like between opposites and complements. The last part was "tall by nature and tall by stature/but always a stranger."
Dream #1
I was driving in a car along a hill in very dark night. Down the hill I saw a city which I thought of as Albuquerque. The city was spiral, in an almost hexagonal pattern. I felt like I lived in a trailer on the outskirts of the town.
From the center of teh city the "power" went out. The very center of the city was black, lightless, except a tiny circle of light, as in the center of a pentagon. From the center the orange and yellowish lights went out, to the edge of the city. All that were left were greyish-white lights, although those lights may actually have provided half the light in the city.
I felt like the town's energy had gone out because people hadn't been conserving, and so it would go out completely if people didn't finally start conserving. I wondered about my trailer on the outskirts of town. I couldn't doubt that I, too, had not conserved. But was I wasting energy even now, while I wasn't even in the trailer? I thought I should consider every way in which I could conserve.
I was in a church. There was a wedding, possibly between my old boss and constant mentor, EB, and a blonde woman. I stood near the back of the church. The church was brightly lit and full of people. EB (?) stood at the back of the church, in business attire rather than a tuxedo. He was a couple rows ahead of me, but on his side (the left side) of the church it seemed the pews ended a couple rows up from the rows on my side, so that EB and I both stood behind the back pews of our respective sides.
I stood by the bride, who was dressed in a normal wedding gown. At one point I leaned close and spoke with the bride. She was standing. She may suddenly have been wearing a thick, pink nightgown. At this point I may also have been a woman and wearing the same thing.
I was myself again. Everybody was kneeling for part of the church service, as if this were now a regular Catholic (?) service. The bride may have knelt (in her wedding gown again) on a footstool. I may have tried to go up a couple rows to find some space available on one of the kneeling benches in the pews.
As I looked I saw a glass door to my right. Through the door I saw another sanctuary, also full of people. A couple people, my co-worker CR and a tall man with a wide, baldish head and white hair, were walking toward the door.
The man was a Lutheran minister, and he wore a collar. I thought he had come dressed up for the wedding. I had previously only seen him in regular clothes. I didn't know if he knew me, but I knew him. I was happy to see him dressed up.
I was getting ready to hold the door open for the man and CR. But the man brusquely opened the door, almost pushing me over, and walked past me, barely acknowledging me, and not acknowledging me in any friendly way. I was shocked.
I saw a sign, as if it were turned on its side. The sign was maybe eight feet long and one foot wide. There was white lettering against a red background for most of it, but on the far right side was a black and white photo of a man who looked like Aleister Crowley except with a huge, black beard and a broad-brimmed hat.
The words that took up most of the sign described this man and were pairs of adjectives separated by slashes. The description pairs weren't quite opposites, more like between opposites and complements. The last part was "tall by nature and tall by stature/but always a stranger."
(1/27/08) building theories of color and skating
(Entered in paper journal at 6:30 AM.)
Dream #1
I walked through a chain link gate opening into a conference event that was set up under tents in a large area like a parking lot. The conference was something like a homebuilding industry conference.
There were some middle-aged women under a small tent before the large tent. They had a bunch of flyers in bins and on the table. Some flyers were actually just huge name and address lists for homebuilders across the nation. I picked up one of the flyers.
I walked toward the entrance of the large tent, wondering whether I had enough money to go inside, or if I even wanted to spend the money to go inside. To my left was the tent I had just come from. To my right were a bunch of milk crates full of stuff as if at a garage sale. The aisle between these two areas was maybe only three or four feet wide.
I looked into the milk crates. The crates were full of used books. Three books in particular caught my eye. One was a flat-colored, thickish book with a depiction of something like church communion on it. The book might have had a title related to the Catholic church. Another book was a paperback. The cover had coloration like an overexposed photo of a sunset. It was titled something like A Word on Kerenyi.
The third book was a large picture book. It was apparently an essay on color by a modern philosopher or artist I liked a lot. The cover photo was very dark, with just glows of bright color, as if a photo of a window were being taken from inside a dark house.
I was very interested in this book. I picked it up and looked through it. The photos were all somehow very normal. One photo in particular might have been of a girl in a bikini on the beach. The photos all had a weird, but not extremely weird, coloration.
I couldn't see what these photos were teaching about color. But I felt that if I looked closely enough at the photos for a while I might understand. I decided I would buy the book instead of (?) going into the conference. The book cost $23.50. The conference cost $21.
I was inside a building, in an area like the third-floor ballroom-like area in the Brooklyn Museum of Art except smaller, more polished, and lit by candlelight. I was skateboarding through the room. I heard my brother telling me how another person (a long-haired, Hispanic man) had taught him how to skateboard better than I'd taught him.
It was now like I was skating like, or even in the identity of, the other person. I/he was skating smoother than I had ever skated. I was jealous of the other man for having been able to teach my brother so well.
Dream #1
I walked through a chain link gate opening into a conference event that was set up under tents in a large area like a parking lot. The conference was something like a homebuilding industry conference.
There were some middle-aged women under a small tent before the large tent. They had a bunch of flyers in bins and on the table. Some flyers were actually just huge name and address lists for homebuilders across the nation. I picked up one of the flyers.
I walked toward the entrance of the large tent, wondering whether I had enough money to go inside, or if I even wanted to spend the money to go inside. To my left was the tent I had just come from. To my right were a bunch of milk crates full of stuff as if at a garage sale. The aisle between these two areas was maybe only three or four feet wide.
I looked into the milk crates. The crates were full of used books. Three books in particular caught my eye. One was a flat-colored, thickish book with a depiction of something like church communion on it. The book might have had a title related to the Catholic church. Another book was a paperback. The cover had coloration like an overexposed photo of a sunset. It was titled something like A Word on Kerenyi.
The third book was a large picture book. It was apparently an essay on color by a modern philosopher or artist I liked a lot. The cover photo was very dark, with just glows of bright color, as if a photo of a window were being taken from inside a dark house.
I was very interested in this book. I picked it up and looked through it. The photos were all somehow very normal. One photo in particular might have been of a girl in a bikini on the beach. The photos all had a weird, but not extremely weird, coloration.
I couldn't see what these photos were teaching about color. But I felt that if I looked closely enough at the photos for a while I might understand. I decided I would buy the book instead of (?) going into the conference. The book cost $23.50. The conference cost $21.
I was inside a building, in an area like the third-floor ballroom-like area in the Brooklyn Museum of Art except smaller, more polished, and lit by candlelight. I was skateboarding through the room. I heard my brother telling me how another person (a long-haired, Hispanic man) had taught him how to skateboard better than I'd taught him.
It was now like I was skating like, or even in the identity of, the other person. I/he was skating smoother than I had ever skated. I was jealous of the other man for having been able to teach my brother so well.
NOTEBOOK 15 - 1/30/08 to 5/26/08
As I began writing this notebook, it was obvious to everybody, except maybe the financial analysts, that the world was careening into a financial crisis. Banks had already begun failing. Other banks were involved in strange investment scheme scandals. I saw these events mostly from the same viewpoint as everybody else: from the newspaper headlines. But I also had a view of them, though a rather peripheral view, from my own work and from my efforts to involve myself as fully in my company as I could.
Over the months previous to this notebook I had already been involving myself more and more in the life of my company. I always attended the daily Sales department meetings, where the Research department would pitch their new analysis. But now I attended our weekly divisional meetings, where the heads of the various departments would give presentations to anybody within the division who was interested in hearing. I also attended a number of other informational sessions. It was one part of what I now consider to be my crash course in finance and economics.
Another part of this crash course was reading Federal Reserve and Treasury papers. My efforts along these lines were probably capped by my reading and taking intensive notes on Treasury Secretary Paulson's Financial Regulatory Blueprint and one of the first incarnations of the Frank-Dodd bill. I actually passed these notes along to my bosses, as well as to heads of my division. I think the interest I had in getting more involved in the bank was illustrated by the effort I put into these notes and that it may have helped push me along in getting promoted.
But the story of my promotion was mainly this: as a result of the financial crisis, banks were already beginning to lose money. They were also becoming horrible, dreary environments to work at. To offset the money being lost, banks were cutting out unnecessary personnel. Right at the beginning of the year, about 25% of my department was let go. Over the next couple of months, another 25% of the department left.
One of the people to leave was one of my bosses. He wanted to take me along with him to his next company. I had gone through the interview process at the other company and was getting ready to leave for that company. I was being hired on in my current position of Administrative Assistant. But my wage would have been about 33% above what I was currently making. With overtime, which was a given, I would have been doing very well indeed.
But my main boss, BS, and possibly some other people in my department, did not want to see me go. So I was given the counteroffer of being made a first-year Research Analyst for the company if I stayed. I received a salary equivalent to what my wage over at the other company would have been had I worked only a 40-hour week. But I had a "title." This, a "title," was, partly, enough reason for me -- stupidly! -- to leave the offer at the other company and stay with my boss BS.
There were a number of other reasons, as well. One of the main reasons was that I had been on the train one day, heading home. I saw one of the heads of my department on the train. She started talking about how so many people in the firm were leaving for other positions. She seemed -- to me, at least -- to get a little teary-eyed. Seeing my department head getting teary-eyed sparked up new feelings of company loyalty in me. I decided to stay.
How in the world did a dope like me ever end up on Wall Street? Chances are that if my department head had known what kind of an offer I was getting, she'd have been extremely happy for me. Anyway, my choice led me down a not-so-great road. I was promoted. But I was laid off in April of 2009.
I went without a job (except some temping) until December of 2009, when I began work, promoted one more rung to Associate, at a small investment firm. And then, in June of 2011, I had a huge emotional explosion and quit that job. I wandered around New York, draining all my savings away, for the rest of 2011. I then came back to my home state of Colorado in 2012. And this past year has been an attempt to get back on my feet and get my head back in order.
But, in the meantime, in April of 2008, I was officially promoted to a first-year Analyst. It took me a while to be practically, as well as officially, promoted. But, for all intents and purposes, by the end of this notebook, I was a Financial Analyst. And the world of finance was tumbling down all around me.
But, while this period was definitely a period of growth and study in my professional life, it was also a period of study in my personal life. I was about six months into my work with my new psychiatrist, A. She was a Jungian psychiatrist. I assumed she'd be deeply involved in studying dream symbolism. That's why I'd come to her. But I was wrong. She almost seemed to be afraid of my dreams.
However, A did lead me to Jungian authors I'd never heard of before. She also lead me to the Archive for Research in Archetypal Symbolism. I began spending evenings there occasionally. The Archive is really just a small, narrow room with a small, but wonderful, library and a wall completely lined with filing cabinets. The cabinets are all filled with photos of art works and artifacts. The images are categorized by time period and culture. But a card catalog also categorizes them by archetypal image, mythological persona, etc.
I spent hours at the ARAS, sifting through images I felt related to my dreams. My work at the ARAS also inspired me to begin research for the screenplay I would begin to write in early 2009 when, let go from my job, I had a lot more time on my hands.
The ARAS was located in the building of the C.G. Jung Foundation, which contained a Jungian bookstore. From that bookstore I bought the (prohibitively expensive) volumes of Jung's seminar on Dreams and Jung's seminar on Visions. These three volumes became the cornerstone of my study and thought throughout the beginning of 2008.
In late February of 2008, I believe, while I was studying the seminar on Dreams (I think), H, the woman with whom I'd soon become romantically involved, spotted me. She sat down and spoke with me. We got along very well from the very beginning. This was very important event in my life. Even though H and I are no longer romantically involved, we are still very close friends.
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